FESTIVALNERUDA SF 2004

Ticket Reservations: 866.413.0868

PROJECT ARTAUD THEATER
450 Florida St @ 17th St, San Francisco 94110

A week long festival celebrating 100 years of the poet, Pablo Neruda.

Now extended for another week!

“A perfect birthday party”—SF Chronicle

Featuring world premiere of "¡PABLO NERUDA! ¡PRESENTE! "
a new documentary film, directed by Mark Eisner, with narration by
Isabel Allende; book release party of "The Essential Neruda"; along with the
de flor o sangre art exhibition, performances of poetry,
music, dance, and tango inspired by the poet.

Critics on ¡PABLO NERUDA! ¡PRESENTE!

“Well-crafted…smoothly handled package” --Variety

A “fine documentary…Neruda, it seems, would have approved.” –SF Chronicle

“I learned a lot and was very moved by it.” --Farai Chideya KALW 91.7

See FESTIVAL NERUDA Flyer

Give me silence, water, hope.
Give me struggle, iron, volcanoes.
Fasten your bodies to mine like magnets.
Come to my veins and my mouth.
Speak through my words and my blood

--Pablo Neruda

The Festival begins on July 12th, 2004, when the poet would have turned 100.

Buy tickets online below or a limited number of tickets will be available at the box office.
Project Artaud box office is open from 6pm every night.

Festival passes are available for all events: $65
Ticket Reservations: 866-413-0868

Sliding scale and discounted tickets for students, seniors, and disabled available
at the door or by phone reservation.

all week long - de flor o sangre / of flower or blood

6-8 pm FREE de flor o sangre A multidisciplinary art show, featuring painting, sculpture, installation, and performances by twenty-two well-known artists from Latin America, Europe, and the United States. Work by Roberto Matta*, Rene Yañez, Tom Fowler, resident Red Poppy artist Todd Brown and many others!

wed. 21

7:30 pm

¡PABLO NERUDA! ¡PRESENTE!

thurs, 22

7:00 - 7:30 pm
Poetry reading Niloufar Talebi of The Translation Project, and Dan O.

7:30 pm

9:30 pm Neruda's LOVE & WAR Presenting an original work showcasing an interdisciplinary collaboration of jazz, poetry, and modern dance as a re-interpretion of Neruda's text. Jazz: MARCUS SHELBY TRIO Spoken Palabra (excerpts from Neruda's text): Peter Macon & Paula Tejeda Rieloff Choreography: Veronica Irene & Jacinta Vlach Dance: Kalliope Kalombratsos, Aja Randall, Juan Carlos de la Rosa, Laura Sadai, Laura Serghiou, and Jacinta Vlach Lighting Design: Delphine de St. Paer Suter & Joseph Mullen Costume Design: Sasha Rieker fri, 23 7:30 pm ¡PABLO NERUDA! ¡PRESENTE! 9:30 pm TANGO FOR DON PABLO Tango Protesta is a Buenos Aires-based dance theater collective that utilizes popular culture (tango) to explore and address political and social issues. Festival Neruda is proud to have Pedro "El Indio" Benavente, Tango Protesta founder, here collaborating with local dancers and actors to present this night's performance. What better tribute to Neruda than to present the joining of political intent with artistic expression. Featuring: Pedro "El Indio" Benavente, Adrian Arias, Todd Brown, Fernando Esterillas, Nadja Haas, Kalliope Kalombratsos, Daniel Montessano, Juan de la Rosa, Xochitl Sami, & Niloufar Talebi. This night's dance theater performance is formed from an interplay of images and scenarios juxtaposing fragments of Neruda's work against the diverse realities that compose today's modern society. The performance occurs outside the stage setting, engaging the actual space; the architectural reality of the canning factory that we now know as Artaud Theater. It is fragmented and abstract, guerilla theater that emerged from a week of collaborative workshops. We leave you to your own interpretations. Milonga: Tango dance party sat, 24 3:30 pm & 7:30 pm ¡PABLO NERUDA! ¡PRESENTE! 9:30 pm tinta verde Performed by Quijeremá, latin american music ensemble tinta verde / green ink soundtrack of the documentary ¡PABLO NERUDA! ¡PRESENTE! Quique Cruz (Claudio Durán Pardo) has composed an exceptional score for the movie with his new dynamic Latin Americana group Quijeremá. It draws from the musical roots of the Americas, incorporating jazz ideals with South American instruments and rhythms. The soundtrack will be available July 12th, so check back then! The album is named "Tinta Verde," after the green ink in which Neruda wrote his poems.

sun, 25 3:30 pm

¡PABLO NERUDA! ¡PRESENTE!

Film by Mark Eisner. A Red Poppy Production. Festival produced by Tanya Marie Vlach.

Sponsors: Red Poppy, Latino Film Festival, City Lights, Project Artaud, Stanford Center for Latin American Studies and La Peña Cultural Center.

de flor o sangre / of flower or blood

See de flor o sangre flyer
A multidisciplinary art show presenting works inspired by the poet. Featuring painting, sculpture, installation, and performances by twenty-two well-known artists from Latin America, Europe, and the United States.

	Pablo was the image of despair. Art is like that. His despair was so vast that he had to interrupt it in the form of poems. He despaired of his shoelaces, of the illusions of the bottle, of the smell of Munñoz; he was always in despair.... One has to be in despair about everything, in order to defeat despair.
	-- Roberto Matta on Pablo Neruda

Featured artists: Adrian Arias, Veronica Blanco, Todd Brown, Caleb Duarte, Tom Fowler, Gianluca Franzese, Francisco Gomez, Matthew Heller, Kalliope Kalombratsos, Peter Macon, Roberto Matta*, Emanuel Paniagua, Sasha Rieker, Marcela Reyes, Prem Sarjo, Alyson Saslow, Jeff Stott, Armando Torres, Rene Yañez & many more!

*Special showing of the work of the Chilean artist, Roberto Matta, friend and compatriot of Neruda courtesy of the Weinstein Gallery.

de flor o sangre Artist Bios (top)

Adrián Arias (Peru 1961) is a poet, visual artist, and performer, who has exhibited work in the Poetry Bunker at the Venice Bienal, the Bienal Iberoamericana in Lima, and in exhibitions in Canada, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Poland, France, and Japan. He has published four poetry collections, which received important prizes in Peru and Argentina.

Veronica Blanco (Buenos Aires) has a contagious passion and love for arts, she found that it had become a strong part of her life. Her sensibility and playfulness create a freedom of expression that illuminates any room. Born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina she was educated and trained with a consistent artistic focus. She has a B.A. in Graphic Design and Publicity from Escuela Panamericana de Arte in Buenos Aires and has also studied fine art for two years in Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes Regina Pacis, Buenos Aires.

Todd Brown (Vermont 1970) is painter who also has worked as a facilitator in resiliency work, first with troubled youth and later, after moving to California, with adults in recovery programs and correctional facilities. In 2000 Todd co-founded Tango for Protest (later called the Milonga Masala Tango Project) a project dedicated toward building community and social awareness through artistic means. In 2003 Todd co-founded Porfilio Is (now Red Poppy Art House) a working artist studio that hosts multi-genre arts events and is the hub for the MAPP: Mission Art & Performance Project.

Caleb Duarte (California) is currently using driftwood and dry wall for his painting/installation pieces with the intention of creating objects that explore the ideas of shelter and the basic necessities needed to keep the body functional. His work has been exhibited in Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, India, Italy, San Francisco, Oakland, Hollywood, Sacramento, and Fresno. He is a second-generation immigrant to the United States, and he lives and works in Oakland, California.

Rona Eisner (Washington DC), a retired psychologist, is a photographer and artist. She draws her inspiration from nature and a strong sense of place. Eisner's work has been shown across the country, from the National Organization of Woman's 2003 Gala Dinner to Georgetown University to Northern Michigan's Traverse Magazine. Her photograph of "Pablo's Poppy" appears on the cover of City Lights' The Essential Neruda, edited by her son Mark. Rona lives just outside of Washington DC.

Tom Fowler (Arizona) studied traditional landscape painting as an apprentice to western artist Bob Gunitson. Fowler now exhibits and publishes his work locally and internationally and has received a number of awards and commissions including: The Colorado Governors Award for Excellence in the Arts; Commissioned portrait of King Lear for the San Francisco Opera; Artist residency, Kunsthaus Tacheles Art Center, Berlin; Artist residency, De Young Museum, San Francisco; Featured exhibitor, Genoa Center for Contemporary Art, Genoa Italy; 12 commissioned portraits for the San Francisco 49er's football team. Fowler's work is in numerous private and corporate collections. He shows regularly at Live Art Gallery and Melting Point Gallery in San Francisco in addition to exhibiting at The Canvas Gallery, Sonoma Museum of Fine Arts, and the Richmond Art Center in northern California. He has shown at Gallery 473 Broadway in New York City's Soho district, Soapbox Gallery in Venice Beach California, and The New Museum in Michigan. His work has been seen at Kunsthaus Tacheles, Berlin Germany, Zincografia, Venice Italy, Museum of Romanian Literature, Bucharest Romania and the Genoa Center for Contemporary Art, Genoa Italy. Fowler was a resident studio artist at The De Young Museum in July, 2002 and was a juror of the 2003, 2004 Scholastic Art Awards for Bay Area youth.

Gianluca Franzese (Italy) communicates to the world through his art. Due to a loss of hearing at age four, his visual perception was enhanced, and he began to use art to express both emotions and explore self-perspective. Franzese currently paints portraits, still lifes, landscapes, and frescos. His aspiration is to bring a resurgence of appreciation of the forms and techniques used by the masters of the nineteenth century.
Francisco J. Gomez (San Francisco, 1958), whose work is primarily in mixed media-- photography with over painting in acrylic--has exhibited at such varied venues as the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, The Luggage Store, and the Mission Cultural Center. He lives and works in San Francisco.

Matthew Heller (Boston, 1974) once predominantly made huge architectural installations, but now his medium is painting. Heller had several shows in small Los Angeles galleries, before moving to New York, where he exhibited work in a few Manhattan-based galleries. In 2002, Heller moved back to Los Angeles, where he is painting up a storm.

Kalliope Kalombratsos (Greece) trained in dance at School of the Arts, then continued study with Elvia Marta, Bayan Jamay, Cheryl Chaddick, Patricia Jiron, and others. She has performed with Tread Dance Company, School of the Arts Alumni, and Patricia Jiron. Kalliope teaches at Rhythm and Motion Dance Studio.

Roberto Matta (Chile, 1911-2002) went to Paris, where, by 1937, he had exhibited his first drawings and had become a part of the influential Surrealist Group led by Andre Breton. He spent the war years in New York, where he stayed until 1948, before returning to Europe. He met Marcel Duchamp, and at the same time became fascinated by the relationship between modern man and the technological world. He used ancient Mexican symbolism to create a new imagery with which to highlight the alienation of modern man in a world dominated by mechanization. In the 1960's, Matta painted a number of mural-sized works depicting themes such as the Vietnam War and the civil rights struggle in Alabama. In 1990, he worked at the Piombino shipyards, in Italy where he made a 10-meter obelisk "Cosmos-Now," depicting a finger pointing to the sky. Between 1990 and 1993 he also worked at the Bonvincini foundry in Verona, where he created a number of bronze statues. He has also completed recent work in ceramics in the town of Faenza. His recent large scale canvases, such as "Fire is the Depth of Consciousness," aim at representing humanity's deepest communal unconscious. Like Picasso, Matta stands in the very rare company of artists who have produced some of their most powerful etchings in their eighties. In October, 1995 Matta was recognized by the Queen of England and the Emperor of Japan with the highly coveted "Nobel Prize" of Art.

Emanuel Paniagua (Guatemala, 1958) was born into an aesthetic culture that has been crafted through centuries with artistic mastery in weavings, clay, stone, and other materials. He is always in search of color, and when he comes into contact with a particular material, he tries to solicit its intimate confession. For that, he says, a good painting emerges.

Prem Sarjo (Chile, 1965) is a painter and installation artist, whose work focuses on issues of identity and loss. Because of the political nature of his work, he has recently been censored in Chile, both in the press and in galleries. He lived for six years in Mexico City and spent a year in New York City, where his work was shown in numerous exhibits and in alternative spaces. He has also participated in more than 100 exhibits in the United States and throughout Latin America (Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, and so on). His work is in the permanent collections of Chile's major museums and in private collections throughout Latin America.

Alyson Saslow (Michigan, 1973) divides her time between Santa Barbara, Oaxaca, Mexico, and northern Michigan. Her work is influenced by Oaxaca's forests and marine life, as well as the indigenous artists and their colorful wooden carvings. The outdoors figures largely in her brilliant watercolors, which have been hung in Ann Arbor, in private collections, and will be shown in Santa Barbara and San Francisco in the summer of 2004.

Armando H. Torres (Fresno, Calif.) is a shoemaker and photographer, who in 2000 received a grant from the California Alliance for Traditional Arts to focus on the art of cowboy-boot making. He designed, produced, and
curated an exhibition in 2001 at Arte Americas (Fresno, Calif.) consisting of several pairs of boots, and a 37 foot long photo-mural of over 150 photos detailing the dying art of hand making cowboy boots. He recently exhibited digital photos as part of "Re-mix 2004" at SOMARTS Cultural Center.

Rene Yáñez (San Francisco) is a curator, artist, writer, and producer, who is curating the art exhibit Chicano Visions: American Painters on the Verge. Yáñez, founder and former artistic director of San Francisco's Galeria de la Raza, was one of the first curators to introduce the contemporary concept of Mexico's Day of the Dead to the United States. Active as both a visual and performance arts curator and artist, Yáñez co-founded the successful Chicano performance trio Culture Clash. In 1998, he received the "Special Trustees Award in Cultural Leadership" from the San Francisco Foundation for his long-standing contribution to the cultural life of the Bay Area. As a Rockefeller Fellow in 1974, Yáñez held an apprenticeship at the De Young Museum and was subsequently curator of traveling exhibitions at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 1975. He was a founding board member of the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery where he served for eight years. He has been on numerous panels both for the California Arts Council and National Endowment for the Arts, and has been a Master Teacher for the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts. He currently teaches at New College of California.

Festival Bios (top)

mon, 12
THE PABLO NERUDA CENTENARY FIESTA 100 years

Center for Art and Translation. The mission of the Center for Art in Translation is to promote translation and international literature through programs in publishing, education, community outreach and the arts. Since its founding, CAT has launched several new programs including Poetry Inside Out (PIO), which brings literary translators into San Francisco Public Schools to work with bilingual Latino students. The PIO program seeks to demonstrate the benefits of bilingualism, encourage language learning, and promote reading and translation skills through a series of activities, culminating in public poetry recitals.

Mark Eisner has most recently been a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University's Center for Latin American Studies. While in Chile several years ago, he was the initiator of the Pablo Neruda Centennial Project. Besides his work on this film, he is currently editing a new book of translations of Neruda into English, which City Lights is publishing. Eisner received a Masters in Latin American Studies from Stanford in 2001. This came after three years of extensive backpacking travels and adventures throughout Latin America, including working on a rustic ranch in the rugged Central Valley of Chile for seven months. Before that, Eisner earned a Bachelors of Arts degree with High Honors from the University of Michigan in English/Creative Writing and Political Science. He has studied documentaries at the Film Arts Foundation in San Francisco.

Lawrence Ferlinghettii was born in 1919 in state New York. After attending the University of North Carolina, in Chapel Hill, Ferlinghetti joined the navy and was stationed in Nagasaki weeks after the nuclear bomb was dropped. Ferlinghetti went on to teach French and created his own bookstore, the City Lights Bookstore, with Peter Martin. Ferlinghetti is one of the main writers from the Beat Generation. His City Lights Bookshop has became a center for writers diverging from convention and the status quo. San Francisco's 1998 Poet Laureate, Lawrence Ferlinghetti is seen as one of the most influential writers in the last century.

Robert Hass is the author of three books of poems, Field Guide (1973), Praise (1979), and Human Wishes, A book of his essays, Twentieth Century Pleasures, received the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1984. His many honors include a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship. In 1995 he was selected by the Library of Congress as Poet Laureate of the United States. Robert Hass is a Professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley.

Jack Hirschman. Writer/translator Jack Hirschman was born on December 13, 1933, in New York, NY
Hirschman received his Bachelor of Arts degree from City College New York in 1955. He has worked with many prestigious institutions and Universities as a writer and an artist. He has translated of over 25 books from the original German, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Albanian, and Greek.
He has taken the free exchange of poetry and politics into the streets, where he is, in the words of poet Luke Breit, called, "America's most important living poet." He uses his skills to help awaken the American people to homelessness as an expression of a system that can no longer take care of its people. He has written more than 50 volumes of poetry and essays. His impassioned readings challenge his audience. He speaks on the artist's role in social transformation.

Stephen Kessler's latest book of poems is After Modigliani (Creative Arts). His recent translations include Save Twilight, Selected Poems of Julio Cortázar (City Lights), and a substantial contribution to the Selected Poems of Jorge Luis Borges (Viking/Penguin). His new version of Pablo Neruda's Heights of Macchu Picchu with photographs by Barry Brukoff will be published next year by Bulfinch, and his Aphorisms of César Vallejo is forthcoming from Green Integer. He also edits The Redwood Coast Review.

Quijerema (see about the music)

tues, 13
LA NOCHE DE JUVENTUD

Center for Art and Translation, (see above)

Colored Ink. In July 2001, a cadre of Brava Theater Academy graduates, proudly marched into a BRAVA Board of Directors' meeting and presented the vision and name of their newly formed company, Colored Ink. Now in its second year under BRAVA's mentorship, Colored Ink- "The folks that make you think"-have created numerous original productions at the Brava Theater Center, as well as led classes in the CI style. Colored Ink received its first funding with BRAVA for a project called Two Generations, One HeartBEAT that pairs new spoken word artists with beat generation poets like Ferlinghetti, Janice Mirikatani, devorah major and Jimmy Santiago Baca.

WritersCorps, a project of the San Francisco Arts Commission, works to transform and strengthen individuals and communities through the written and spoken word. Objectives include improving writing skills and self-confidence of undeserved youth in San Francisco and to increase community awareness and understanding of the lives of youth through WritersCorps publications and special events.

Youth Speaks (SF) is building the next generation of leaders through the written and spoken word. Founded in San Francisco in 1996, Youth Speaks is one of the premier nonprofit presenters of spoken word in the country, producing multiple artistic forums, such as the Living Word Festival, the Youth Speaks Teen Poetry Slam, Second Sundays, and Brave New Voices, along with a comprehensive curricula of workshops, arts education and youth development programs.

wed, 14
Es Hora de Jardín: Cultivating art-activism in the spirit of Neruda.

Jack Hirschman, (Poet/Painter)

James Lerager, (Photographer)

devorah major, (Poet Laureate)

Alejandro Murguía, (Author/Educator)

Leslie Scalapino, (Poet)

thurs, 15
de flor o sangre a collective show by artists of the Americas
multi- and inter-disciplinary works inspired by Neruda's poetry.
See de flor o sangre

fri, 16
LOVE & WAR: Interdisciplinary performance w/ jazz, poetry, and modern dance.

Veronica Irene, (Choreographer) a native of Buffalo, New York, has studied dance and theater for over twenty years. She attended the Conservatory of Dance at Suny Purchase College where she was trained in dance-composition and studied art history. She has choreographed and taught dance in various areas throughout the United States. Veronica presents " Porque Tú "--- (translated "Because of You")-. A passionate scene inspired by words of Neruda, movement of lovers and selected composers.

Kalliope Kalombratsos, (Dancer) is originally from Athens, Greece. She has resided in San Francisco for the past 14 years. Began her dance training at School Of The Arts and continued study with Elvia Marta, Bayan Jamay, Cheryl Chaddick, Patricia Jiron and other wonderful Bay Area teachers. She has performed with Tread Dance Company, School of the Arts Alumni and Patricia Jiron. Presently, Kalliope teaches at Rhythm and Motion Dance Studio, as well as continuing her studies at SF State University and the Acupressure Institute in Berkeley.

Peter Macon, (Actor, Painter, & Dancer) a native a Chicago began acting professionally at the age of seventeen. Since the start of his career, Peter has performed in numerous regional theatres across the country including the Guthrie Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, California Shakespeare Festival, New Federal Theatre, and Lincoln Center. All the while Mr. Macon actively pursued a career as a professional artist showing his work in Minneapolis, Atlanta, Oakland and San Francisco. Peter Received a B.F.A from the San Francisco Art Institute where he studied painting. Mr. Macon has studied West African dance and drumming since 1987 and has performed concerts with mentor/miestro Fode Bangora, Wallace Hill and with Pepo Alfajiri Dance Theatre. Peter has studied sculpture in Ghana where he chronicled his findings entitled "The Asante Carving process and me" which can be found in the University of Minnesota's Wilson Library. After working professionally for over twelve years as a visual and performing artist, Peter entered the Yale School of Drama where he received an M.F.A in acting, as well as the Herschel Williams award for outstanding achievement in acting. Mr. Macon is also the proud recipient of a Creative Emmy Award for his narration of HBO's "John Henry the Steel Driving Man." Peter also appeared on Broadway in the Manhattan Theatre Club's production of Regina Taylor's "Drowning Crow" .

Marcus Anthony Shelby. (Composer) Born in February 1966, Marcus Shelby has been playing the acoustic bass for 19 years. He has released CDs on Columbia Records and GRP Impulse! With his group Black/Note.
Mr. Shelby is also a music director and composer for theater, dance and film to CEO/President of the San Francisco based independent record label NOIR Records.
Shelby believes in the essential need for urban arts and for the place of jazz within the urban context.

Sasha Rieker, (Costume Designer) Sasha's costume work has been seen at the Santa Fe Opera, the San Diego Old Globe, Theatre Works, Opera San José, and The Magic Theatre. Her tailoring for the Broadway Play IMAGINARY FRIENDS was pictured in Vogue Magazine. She has a BFA in Theatre Design and Technology from the University of Montana.

Paula Tejeda Rieloff, (Narrator, Poet)

Jacinta Vlach, (Choreography) started her dance training in San Francisco at School of the Arts High School. Jacinta furthered her dance training at North Carolina School of the Arts and at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center in NYC. In New York she performed in works choreographed by Sean Curran, Reginald Yates, Colin Conner, Earl Mosely, Max Luna III, Alvin Ailey, and others. She also danced with New York based dance companies: Roger Jeffrey/ Subtle Changes, Ricardo Gomez Dance Theater, and Nathan Trice/ RITUALS. Locally, Jacinta has worked with Robert Moses, performed with Savage Jazz Dance Company, Alayo Dance Company, the Universal Arts production of "the Beat" and the Oneness Awards in L.A. Ms. Vlach's choreography has been seen at Intersection for the Arts, Legion of Honor, and Yerba Buena Gardens (Youth Arts Festival/ courtesy SF Ballet). She is currently preparing to remount 'Meditations on Integration', a dance-theater piece, to be performed at the African American Art and Culture Complex in October.

sat, 17
TANGO FOR DON PABLO

Pedro Benavente, "El Indio"(Argentina) was born in Buenos Aires. He has a very special style of dancing, mainly due to his academic and popular background.
He was the first dancer of the Brandsen Ballet and the Ballet Nacional Folklórico. In 1991, after becoming an independent dancer he won the Bienal de Arte Joven en Danza Contemporanea (Biannual festival of young art in contemporary dance). In 1992 he was invited by the Bolshoi Ballet to create a fusion of tango and ballet with the music of Astor Piazzola, in Moscow and Georgia. The same experience was repeated in 1994 at the Opera Theatre in Buenos Aires. 1999 he worked with Mercedes Sosa and León Gieco, and Victor Heredia in different festivals throughout Argentina. During the last 10 years he has toured different festivals and tango congresses in Buenos Aires, USA and Europe, including CITA 99 & 2000, and Nora's Tango Week 99 and 2000. He also has kept for 10 years a street performance at Plaza Dorrego in San Telmo (typical tango neighborhood in Buenos Aires) portraying the history of tango through dance.

sun, 18
give rise to my song

Final Musical

Ismael Duran. Chilean singer,songwriter and guitarist ISMAEL DURAN was born in the "Southernmost city of the world" Punta Arenas. He has been composing and performing since 1970,singing the Nueva Cancion(New Song) of Latin America throughout Chile, Europes and The Americas.

Lichi Fuentes was born and grew up in San Fernando, Chile, a small town a couple of hours south of the capital, Santiago. Lichi is currently the musical director of La Peña Community Chorus, an organization based in Berkeley which has toured internationally and recorded an album. The 2002 tour went to Mexico and included concerts in Mexico City, Chiapas and Veracruz. Other tours have been to Chile and Cuba. In the last few years, Lichi has been more involved in solo musical projects, collaborating with musicians from the Bay Area. This CD, QUIEN SOY (Who I Am), produced by Wayne Wallace, is the result.

Quijeremá. Founded in October 2002 by quique cruz (Chile), Jeremy Allen (US), and María Fernanda Acuña (Venezuela), Quijeremá draws from the musical roots of the Americas, incorporating jazz ideals with South American instruments and rhythms. They define their musical genre as new latin americana music.˜

Quique Cruz / aka Claudio Durán Pardo (Chile) of Quijeremá. The composer is a Chilean born musician and writer. He has recorded several albums. He has been awarded the prestigious Oshita Composer Fellowship by the Djerassi Foundation in California, and received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. He is a Ph.D. candidate in Modern Thought and Literature at Stanford University.

Jeremy Allen (US) of Quijeremá, has recorded and performed jazz, latin, and fusion music in the U.S. He has been featured with the San Francisco symphony's Adventures in Music program, and holds a B.A. from U.C. Berkeley.

María Fernanda (Venezuela) of Quijeremá, has been musically trained in Venezuela and the U.S., and is currently finishing a degree in Latin American Literature at Mills College, working on the historic and cultural development of Venezuelan music and the contributions of the African Diaspora.

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