HotHouse presents Septeto Santiaguero on August 5 at Martyrs'
HotHouse is Chicago's premiere presenter of arts and culture from the island of Cuba and has featured most of the country's legends - from the U.S. debut in the 1990's of Los Van Van to its most recent May Day concert featuring Septeto Nacional. Now direct from the famous Casa de la Trova club in their hometown Santiago de Cuba, the cradle of son and bolero, HotHouse presents Septeto Santiaguero, the foremost son music ensemble on the current Cuban scene.
Founded in 1995 by tres guitar virtuoso Fernado Dewar, Septeto has recorded 8 records in their two decade history. Their most recent release, Tributu a Los Compadres, is a collaboration with Jose 'El Canario' Alberto and was blessed with a 2016 Grammy nomination in the Tropical Latin category and a 2015 Latin Grammy win. This current tour supports their new cd No Queiro Llanto - Tributo a Los Compadres expected to be released this summer.
The band began their career performing in a small restaurant in Santiago de Cuba known for showcasing traditional music. "It's a place that came about spontaneously, where the musicians would meet and sing," Dewer says. "Over the years, it developed a schedule, but it never lost its spontaneous character or its relationship to the musicians. "To this day, La Casa de la Trova is the reference for traditional music in Santiago."
While in Havana, there can be found a mix of Cuban and Latin music, from salsa to reggaetón, in Santiago de Cuba, traditional son, bolero and trova dominate the music scene. "I think that if we lived in another place, we wouldn't have all the elements that we need, all the influences of Santiago," says Dewer."Cuba is a musical island, but Santiago stands out because of the diversity of genres that are preserved there. And you can see those manifestations in theaters, restaurants and in the streets, constantly. That people go to the concerts and communicate with us. We're not a calm septet. We are a septet that moves around the stage. We have choreographies. The musicians improvise. We are a septet that defends traditional music through a more contemporary perspective."
"Septeto Santiaguero brings that energy with them everywhere they go. For two decades, they have toured in Europe and Latin America, preforming in Spain, Colombia, Germany, France, Mexico and Brazil. For Dewer, expanding their music into the American market has been an important step. " Performing in the United States has always been a goal. I think not only for us, but to any artist," The group performed for the first time in the United States at the Lincoln Center in 2016 and this year were one of the crowd favorites in the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.
This will be their Chicago debut.
The concert at Martyrs' is part of HotHouse's Global Voices Series - a project affiliated with The Chicago-Guantanamo Blues Exchange and the 6th annual Encuentro de Jaraneros. These cultural exchanges produced by HotHouse and other partners in the community are designed to maximize cultural diplomacy and people- to- people collaboration through the arts. With a focus on understanding the traditional and connections throughout the African Diaspora, HotHouse has been a leader in organizing and producing a range of multi-disciplinary projects and collaborating with grassroots partners throughout its 30-year history. In spring of 2017, HotHouse led a delegation of musicians to Santiago, Cuba and extends the exchange to welcoming this group to Chicago in August.
Saturday August 5, 2017
Doors 7pm Concert: 8pm
Martyrs' 3855 N. Lincoln Avenue Chicago 60613
Presenter Web-site: www.hothouse.net
Tickets: $20 with promo code, $25 Walk -up
ABOUT HOTHOUSE
HotHouse was founded in 1987 to provide a forum for expression in the arts that was under-represented elsewhere in the Chicago cultural community. It was created primarily to curate multi-arts and educational activities that bolstered the prominence of innovative artists working in the margins of the commercial market and to facilitate events that amplified a variety of progressive social movements. The New York Times wrote of HotHouse "few clubs anywhere offer a wider range of first-rate world music, from wildly vibrant Afro-pop to avant-garde jazz than HotHouse." And a "Best of Chicago" award opined "from European avant-garde jazz acts that don't even play in this hemisphere to performance art to world music to the city's more esoteric acts, [HotHouse] has consistently pulled in some of the planet's most innovative acts."
For two decades the organization maintained two award-winning cultural centers where it presented its programs-the first catalyzed growth in the Wicker Park neighborhood (1987-1995) and the second spurred development in the South Loop in downtown Chicago (1995-2007). The board of directors is currently pursuing plans to build its third site.
HotHouse develops its programs in response to a variety of community needs and seeks to extend the milieu of the academy and position high caliber (and international) arts innovation before underserved populations throughout the Chicago metropolitan region. The GLOBAL VOICES SERIES is supported in part by a grant from the Reva and David Logan Foundation