Featuring: La Misa Negra with Taller Bombalele and Soul y Agua
Sunday, December 3
7 p.m. at The Chapel,
777 Valencia St., San Francisco
Our annual concert series Encuentro del Canto Popular, now 36th year, is all set to return to the Mission on Dec 3. This year we’re keeping the Encuentro spirit of politically conscious Latin music alive by inviting poet, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Monica Fimbrez’s Soul y Agua project and folkloric rhythm and dance ensemble Taller Bombalele, to share the stage with La Misa Negra, the Oakland-based 7-piece whose heavyweight blend of cumbia and Afro-Latin music along with their high-energy live performances has made them a Bay Area favorite.
Get your tickets now at encuentro36.org and more information about the event at the Facebook event page.
More about the bands:
La Misa Negra
Founded by composer, guitarist, and accordion player, Marco Polo Santiago, the band consists of Colombian-born Diana Trujillo (lead vocals), Justin Chin (tenor & baritone sax), Morgan Nilsen (tenor sax & clarinet), Craig Bravo (drums & percussion), Elena de Troya (percussion), and Paul Martin Sounder (upright bass & percussion). Together, the unlikely collective combines a wealth of musical influences as diverse as their cultural backgrounds, but it’s Marco Polo’s affinity for hip-hop and heavy metal that inspires much of the band’s sound and identity.
Taller Bombalele
Taller Bombalele is a dance ensemble which focuses on performing and promoting the Puerto Rican music and dance tradition of Bomba. The ensemble’s founder and leader Maestra Julia Cepeda is the daughter of Bomba Master Jesús Cepeda Brenes and granddaughter of “El Roble Mayor” Don Rafael Cepeda, Puerto Rico’s patriarch of Bomba. Taller Bombalele offers Bomba percussion and dance classes and hosts Bombazos (Bomba performed informally in community) throughout the Bay Area. Currently Taller Bombalele classes are offered on Saturday afternoons at Rhythmix Cultural Works in Alameda, CA,
Soul y Agua
Soul y Agua’s sound reflects Monica Fimbrez’s Californian roots mixed with traditional, earthly and contemporary sounds of Latin America. Monica’s songs are innovative and expressive of a world where cultures coexist. A vocalist, multi-instrumentalist (guitar, jarana, bass, percussion) and composer, she’s a graduate of San Francisco State University who has spent more than half her life songwriting and performing various genres such as Cuban Salsa, Son Jarocho, Cumbia, Jazz and R&B.