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Tierra Mestiza Concert, 2014

PerformerPerformed by Carlos Hernández Chávez (Mexican-American)

PerformerPerformed by Graciela Quiñones-Rodriguez (Puerto Rican)

Date2014 July 23

Mediumborn digital video

DimensionsDuration: 2 Minutes, 30 Seconds

ClassificationsGraphics

Credit LineConnecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections

CopyrightIn Copyright

Object number2015.196.326.2

DescriptionVideo of a musical performance by Connecticut Latin music group Tierra Mestiza, composed on Carlos Hernández Chávez and Graciela Quiñones-Rodriguez. The concert took place outside the Hartford Public Library Dwight Branch in the Parkville neighborhood of Hartford on July 23, 2014.

NotesSubject Note: During the summer, Hartford Public Library presents many outdoor community concerts featuring local musicians at its main library and branches. The Dwight Branch on New Park Avenue in Hartford's Parkville neighborhood has hosted several concerts that are included in the CCHAP archive. At this branch, the concerts are often co-organized by the Parkville Senior and Community Center and local singer Leslie Manselle.

Biographical Note: Carlos Hernández Chávez is a Mexican musician and performer of Jazz and Latin music, playing guitar and singing with Latin musicians around the Greater Hartford area including many years with the group Tierra Mestiza. He often hosts “Porch Concerts” at his home in Harford, convening and participating in musical activities and events around the area. A muralist and a visual artist of international acclaim, his paintings and murals are on permanent display at cultural, educational, and social institutions in the U.S. and Europe and have been featured by print and electronic media in the U.S. and abroad. In addition to being a respected visual artist and educator, he is also an accomplished musician and photographer. Mr. Hernández Chávez is an active Master Teaching Artist with education districts and arts agencies and institutions across Connecticut. Since the early 1970s he has held leadership roles as advisor, co-founder, director, juror, organizer, lecturer, policy-maker, artist-in-residence, consultant, and commissioner, in many Connecticut and Hartford area organizations and institutions, among them The Connecticut Alliance of Black and Hispanic Visual Artists; the Old State House; The Park Street Festival; the Greater Hartford Festival of Jazz; Yale University's Afro-American Cultural Center; the (former) Connecticut Commission on the Arts; the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art; Real Art Ways; Concerned Citizens for Humanity, Inc.; Guakia, Inc., the Evelyn W. Preston Memorial Concert Trust Fund; the Greater Hartford Arts Council, Leadership Greater Hartford, the Edward C. and Ann T. Roberts Foundation, and the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts. He is past Chair of the City of Hartford's Commission on Cultural Affairs and past President of the Mariachi Academy of New England, Inc.

Biographical Note: Graciela Quiñones-Rodriguez is a Puerto Rican educator, social worker, artist, and luthier who apprenticed with William Cumpiano (Easthampton, MA) and has built cuatros, tiples, and bordonuas. Graciela is also a cuatrista and higüera (gourd) and santos carver. She served as an advisory committee and exhibiting artist and workshop leader for CCHAP’s three Puerto Rican projects, starting as a community scholar with Herencia Taina, CCHAP’s 1998 Taino exhibit project, researching the techniques of higüera preparation and decoration for use as household utensils, ornaments with Taino or political iconography, or musical instruments. She also worked as an artist-presenter for the Massachusetts Cultural Council summer institute on Puerto Rican cultural heritage for Springfield, Massachusetts teachers. Graciela is a highly respected arts educator, woodcarver, and singer with the Connecticut Latin music group Tierra Mestiza; she is a Connecticut Commission on the Arts Master Teaching Artist and Artists Fellowship winner. As part of the Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program, she worked with master luthier Bill Cumpiano. Together they built cuatros, tiples, and bordonuas, older forms of Puerto Rican stringed instruments. As part of the apprenticeship they built a cuatro on the basis of a photograph of an unusual form from the early 1900's, which has a bent wood body rather than a hollowed-out base. They demonstrated their partnership work at the Lowell Folk Festival in 2000.

Additional materials realting to these artists exists in the CCHAP archive.

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

Status

Not on view