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Amor y Cultura at The Gathering, 2017

Date2017 September 23

Mediumborn digital video

DimensionsDuration: 3 Minutes, 37 Seconds

ClassificationsGraphics

Credit LineConnecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections

DescriptionVideo of Puerto Rican artists at The Gathering in Waterbury, Connecticut on September 23, 2017. Amor y Cultura are performing with a male jibaro singer. Audience members are dancing.

Object number2015.196.456.4

CopyrightIn Copyright

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 annually since 2013 (except for 2020-2022), The Gathering is organized by journalist John Murray of the Waterbury Observer, councilman Geraldo Reyes, and several other supporters including members of city government. The event 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 the 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 was 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 performed plena and popular Latin dance styles such as salsa and merengue. Led by cuatrista Alfred Rivera, the group was active in the 1990s and first two decades of the 2000s.

Amor y Cultura’s roots and heart identified 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 90'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 continued 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 participated in a vibrant Puerto Rican musical scene throughout Connecticut.

Biographical Note: Alfred Rivera of New Britain began to play the guitar from age five, absorbing the music from his father Florentin, a well known trovador, and family and friends. He has dedicated his life to learning, performing, and Guajibaromoting música tipica and musica jibara, the folk music of Puerto Rico. Alfred took cuatro lessons from master musician Virgilio Cruz as part of the cuatro academy La Primera Orquesta de Hartford, later playing guitar with the group Canto Isleño under the direction of Virgilio Cruz. Alfred also played cuatro to accompany the folk poets who competed in the Concurso de Trovadores that were organized by Cruz and others in Connecticut during the 1990s. Alfred and other musicians kept this musical tradition alive in Greater Hartford after Virgilio returned to Puerto Rico. He brought popular Puerto Rican trovadores to Hartford, including Mariano Cotto and Miguel Santiago from Comerio, a city from which many of Hartford’s residents originate, in 2001. Alfred CCHAP and Rivera produced a Concurso in 2003 on Park Street in Hartford that was attended by over 300 people, with a dozen poets from all over the East Coast competing to compose extemporaneous verse in the décima style, with musical accompaniment. Alfred’s service to his community was honored with a special dinner concert at La Sociedad Puertorriqueña in 2012, with several musicians including his father Florentin Rivera performing. In 2016 Alfred played one of CCHAP’s outdoor concerts at CHS with Amor y Cultura and several trovadores from the community, and in 2019 he performed there with another group, Grupo Guajiba.

Alfred Rivera formed the group Amor y Cultura to perform Puerto Rican música tipica, traditional folk music of the countryside and mountains, featuring bongos, guitar, guiro (gourd scraper), vocals, and cuatro - the signature instrument of this style and Alfred’s specialty. Their repertoire of música jibara is rarely performed in Connecticut, making it an interesting addition to the salsa, merengue, and other popular forms which predominate. They play songs from several important Puerto Rican musical forms, including Trova ( rhythms such as Seis and Aguinaldo which accompany improvised sung poetry such as the décima); Danza (a more classical instrumental style), and Plena (an African-influenced form characterized by percussion and verses of commentary on current events). Amor y Cultura has been performing for over twenty years. Early members of the conjunto included Joe Diaz - cuatro, guitar, tiple, bordonua; Milton Rosado - bongos, conga, tambora; Raul DeLeon – guiro; Alfred Rivera – cuatro; Florentino Rivera – vocals; and Ramon Arroyo - vocals (occasional performer). The recent line-up of musicians includes Pedro Alvarez (guitar), Robert Piñeiro (bongos), Edwin Velez (guiro/gourd scraper), Alfred Rivera (cuatro), and Antonio Rivera (trovador).

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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