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Amor y Cultura at The Gathering, 2017

PerformerPerformed by Ramón Arroyo (Puerto Rican)

Date2017 September 23

Mediumborn digital video

DimensionsDuration: 48 Seconds

ClassificationsGraphics

Credit LineConnecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections

CopyrightIn Copyright

Object number2015.196.456.1

DescriptionVideo of Puerto Rican artists at The Gathering in Waterbury, Connecticut on September 23, 2017. Amor y Cultura are performing on stage with singer Ramon Arroyo.

NotesSubject Note: The Gathering is an expansive and inclusive one-day festival that celebrates the cultures of western Connecticut, particularly the ethnic groups in Waterbury. Held from 2013-2019 and organized by journalist John Murray of the Waterbury Observer, councilman Geraldo Reyes, and several other supporters including members of city government, The Gathering attracts thousands of visitors to Library Park in Waterbury. Over 100 ethnic and civic groups display art works and information on their cultural group at tables set up around the Park, and music and dance groups perform throughout the day on four stages. Dozens of food vendors sell ethnic cuisine. The day starts off with a parade of ethnic groups through downtown Waterbury. The goal of event is to bring together the many ethnic groups that reside in the area; many of them host their own ethnic events and The Gathering aims to introduce them to each other and to the public.

Subject Note: Amor y Cultura is a five-seven member musical group from Connecticut specializing in musica jibara, the folk music of Puerto Rico’s interior mountain regions. The group also performs plena and popular Latin dance styles such as salsa and merengue.

Amor y Cultura’s roots and heart lie with música jibara and its signature instrument, the cuatro. Several members of the group began their folk music experiences in Puerto Rico. The oldest member, Florentino Rivera, sang the rosary as a child - when someone died, he would be called to sing at the wake. His son Alfred Rivera took up the guitar and cuatro at a young age, when he would accompany his father at Christmas parrandas. Joe Diaz from Morovis has played Puerto Rican stringed instruments for twenty-eight years, and has accompanied the great cuatrista Nieves Quintero. Singer and drummer Milton Rosado from Maricao specializes in the bolero song form.

The catalyst which brought Puerto Rican musicians together in Connecticut was a unique música jibara school started by master cuatrista Virgilio Cruz in the early 1990's. Several evenings each week after work, people would gather in Hartford’s Puerto Rican neighborhood to take classes in cuatro playing, traditional musical forms such as the seis and aguinaldo, and folk singing taught by Mr. Cruz and others skilled in those traditions. More than just a learning experience, the school brought many people together around the common social bond of música jibara at a time when Hartford offered few cultural activities for Latinos. The school gave rise to La Primera Orquesta de Cuatros, a large performing group of cuatristas and singers which would hold regular concerts in local churches and halls. Amor y Cultura members Alfred Rivera and Joe Diaz performed in the Orquesta and also in Canto Isleño, the school’s select performing group. Ramon Arroyo, a singer who sometimes performs with Amor y Cultura, competed as a trovador in the school’s annual Concurso, a traditional competition for oral composition of the décima song form.

The school ended after Virgilio Cruz returned to Puerto Rico, but many musicians who had been trained there continue to play regularly at venues such as Peter’s Café, Los Hermanos, and La Comerio on Park Street in Hartford, and the Puerto Rican Society in New Britain. Amor y Cultura grew out of these gatherings, forming as a group in 1994. They played at parrandas, festivals, local Spanish restaurants, and musical masses at churches. The group was invited to play on Pedro Garcia’s folk music radio show on WRYM, the original Spanish-language show in Hartford. Other performances have been at the National Society of Hispanic MBAs Annual Awards Ceremony, “Main Street USA” in New Britain, the Puerto Rican Parade in Hartford, a benefit concert for the monument to the Hispanic family, with recording artists Antonio Caban Vale “El Topo” and Lucecita Benitez, and on the nationally televised show “Desde Mi Pueblo” broadcast live from Park Street. In 1997, they made their first recording. Amor y Cultura participates in a vibrant Puerto Rican musical scene throughout Connecticut.

Biographical Note: Ramon Arroyo was an honored jibaro singer who performed often with La Primera Orquesta de Cuatros, a large performing group of cuatristas and singers which would hold regular concerts in local churches and halls around Hartford. Later he sang with the música jibara group Amor y Cultura around New England. He competed as a trovador in the annual Concurso de Trovadores, a traditional competition for oral composition of the décima song form held in the 1990s and again in 2003 in Hartford. His composition Aguinaldo Cagüeña, accompanied by the New Britain group Amor y Cultura, reflects on Ramon’s early life in Caguas, Puerto Rico.

Additional materials exist in the CCHAP archive for these artists, events, and communities.

Cataloging Note: This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services MA-245929-OMS-20.

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