With the hiring in January, 2022 of Mateo Mulcahy, former Director of Community Projects and Events at the Old Town School of Folk Music, as the ILCC’s Deputy Executive Director and music and dance curator, the Chicago Latino Music began to take shape.

He walked through the ILCC’s doors with guns a-blazing. Not only did he add the ILCC as a co-presenter to the many World Music Wednesdays concerts he had already scheduled at the Old Town School of Folk Music for the year before his departure. Under his leadership, the ILCC presented and co-presented concerts featuring such high profile artists as Alex Cuba (the musical guest of the ILCC’s fundraising dinner on November 14), Los Van Van, Chilean singer-songwriter Pascuala Ilabaca, and São Paulo musician and educator Paulo Padilha. 

The 2022 Chicago latino Music Series wrapped up the year with an equally eclectic lineup which included: a Zapotec folk dance troupe (Galguez Laxá) and a Zapotec rock group (Dizá) as part of the city of Chicago’s Indigenous Peoples Day celebrations; explores the influences of Middle Eastern music on Andalusia, Spain (The Andalusian Trail and flamenco guitarist Juan Carmona); presented 16-year-old guitar prodigy Juan Ausiàs Parejo from Valencia; and celebrated the tradition of las tunas (that dates back to 13th century Spain and Portugal when students went about singing and playing music out of the pure need to survive and pay their school fees) with La Tuna de Oro de Guanajuato. 

The following year, produced 33 music concerts in 18 venues, featuring some big names including: Olga Cerpa, one of the most important female voices in the Canary Islands, and her group Mestisay at the Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center in the West side neighborhood of Hermosa; Juan de Marco González and his Afro-Cuban All Stars at Dominican University’s Lund Auditorium in the suburb of River Forest; Argentinian rocker Kevin Johansen and graphic designer and illustrator Liniers collaborating on a multimedia show at the Old Town School of Folk Music, the Afro-Peruvian folk-electronica group Novalima as part of that year’s Indigenous Peoples Day celebration at Chop Shop, a music venue/restaurant/butcher shop located in the Wicker Park neighborhood; and son jarocho legends Mono Blanco at Instituto Cervantes. 

When it comes to big names, however, the ILCC took a big gamble by joining forces with national events producer Backstage Productions to present the Chicago debut of samba superstar Zeca Pagondinho on June 14 at The Vic Theater. Born Jessé Gomes da Silva Filho in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, Zeca started his career as a child in the 1970s and became a regular performer in samba gatherings, where he perfected a samba style known as Pagode. This new style triggered a samba revival in the 1980s, when Zeca became known as its true face. It was in the most important of these pagodes, the one that gathered the bloco carnavalesco Cacique de Ramos, that he became acquainted with another samba legend, Beth Carvalho, who became his madrinha, or protector. Does that name ring a bell? 

Last year, the ILCC launched the inaugural season of the Levitt VIBE Belmont Cragin Music Series at Riis Park, in the far northwest mostly Latino community of Belmont Cragin. Supported in part by the Mortimer & Mimi Levitt Foundation, which partners with changemakers and nonprofits across the country to activate underused outdoor spaces through the power of free, live music, the series featured a mix of local, national, and international artists (some making their Chicago debut) from across the Latino diaspora for 10 consecutive weeks from mid-June to mid-August,. Artists included: the cumbia-punk-queer group Kumbia Queers; Montreal-based Haitian musician Wesli; singer-songwriter Sara Curruchich, the first indigenous Guatemalan singer and songwriter to sing in Kaqchikel; and Chicago’s ESSO Afrojam Funkbeat.

Speaking of Chicago debuts, the ILCC joined forces with the Instituto Cervantes to bring two of the most exciting, innovative flamenco women performers as part of Cervantes’ annual Flamenco Festival in March of last year: María José Llergo and Las Migas. Llergo had already been the subject of a New York Times article that helped elevate her profile in the United States while Las Migas were celebrating their 20th anniversary with a new lineup and a Latin Grammy award in 2022 for their album Libres in their pockets. Las Migas would return to Chicago for an encore performance on November 15 at the Old Town School of Folk Music to present their brand new album Rumberas, a tribute to rumba in all its forms.

Another highlight of what turned out to be a hectic 2024 series was a program of two concerts the ILCC titled The Galicia/Portugal Connection, an exploration, through music, of the cultural ties that bind Portugal with Galicia, in the Northwest region of Spain. The series featured the return to Chicago, after ten years, of acclaimed Galician bagpipe player Carlos Núñez. Considered the “7th member of The Chieftains” and proclaimed the “Jimi Hendrix of bagpipes” by Billboard. The concert, produced in partnership with the Irish American Heritage Center and with community partner Instituto Cervantes, was held at the Irish American Heritage Center on October 15.

Then, on November 2, fado sensation Carminho kicked off her US tour at City Winery, to support the release of the EP Carminho at Electrical Audio, which was co-produced and engineered by the late Steve Albini in his Chicago studio, Electrical Audio. Albini is known for his work with some of the finest musicians including Nirvana, Page & Plant, and The Pixies, among others. The EP includes a duet with the iconic Brazilian artist Caetano Veloso.

Lessons learned from last year’s Levitt VIBE Belmont Cragin Music Series were applied this year to the Levitt VIBE Chicago Music Series. Instead of mid-afternoon, most concerts would start after 6 pm, guaranteeing a larger audience. Through social media, the ILCC reached out to neighborhood organizations and businesses to get out of the word. The concerts were still held on Saturdays from mid-June to mid-August but instead of taking place in one park, the series expanded to four: Riis Park and, on the south and southwest side, La Villita Park, Gage Park and Rainbow Beach. For the first time in its history, the ILCC featured Regional Mexican Music as part of its programming through this summer series with performances from local stalwarts La Ley del Norte, Banda el Recuerdo and Grupo Love Secreto. This year’s series also featured the Chicago debut of Las Karamba, an all-female ensemble based in Barcelona that brings together six musicians from Venezuela, Cuba, Catalonia, France, and Argentina who infuse traditional styles like Son, Cha-Cha-Cha, Salsa, and Timba with rap and urban influences. 

Outside of the Levitt series, the ILCC was far more judicious and strategic when it came to the number of concerts produced this year, especially given this current administration’s attack on the arts Besides after-Levitt shows for Los Crema Paraíso and Dos Santos at Fitzgerald, a second show of Las Karamba at the Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center and multiple appearances by Los Gaiteros de Pueblo Santo at outdoor events and indoor venues during the summer, the ILCC also presented two kickass jazz shows at Constellation: Paquito D’Rivera, Fareed Haque and multi-instrumentalist Howard Levy on May 14, followed on June 6 by Puerto Rican trumpetist Charlie Sepúlveda and his band The Turnaround with Eligio “Prodigio” Claudio in the Puerto Rican cuatro.

What will the Chicago Latino Music Series look like in 2026 and beyond? Well, that’s where you, our dear reader and supporter, come in:

As part of its fundraising campaign commemorating its 25th anniversary, the International Latino Cultural Center will be hosting a dinner celebration at CineCity Studios, 2429 West 14th St. on Friday, November 14, featuring a solo performance from Grammy® and Latin Grammy® Award winning artist Alex Cuba and the very best in Latino cuisine. Doors open at 6 p.m. For more information, visit the ILCC’s official fundraising dinner page. 

Unable to make the event? Never fear, you can still be part of our campaign with your individual contribution. Every single bit helps our mission to preserve in the city of Chicago a space for Pan-Latino arts in all its glorious disciplines. For more information on individual giving visit our individual giving page.

The International Latino Cultural Center of Chicago is a 501(3)(c) nonprofit cultural organization. All contributions are tax-deductible to the full extent allowed by the law.

The International Latino Cultural Center’s programming is built around seven programming pillars: film, music, dance, theater, the culinary arts, the visual arts and literature. Of these seven pillars, music, without a doubt, is the ILCC’s second largest program after film.

And for good reason. As the late Dick Clark said, “music is the soundtrack of our lives.” Walk down any street of Latin America or Spain or even the Latino barrios of the United States, step into any Latino restaurant or business or household and you will be surrounded by the sounds of any of the dozens of rhythms from the Latino diaspora coming from radios, stereo systems or any other device. According to Nielsen, Latino “consumers spend 32 hours a week listening to music, outpacing non-Hispanic Whites and the total U.S. population. Radio—both online and terrestrial—remains a key source of music for Latinx, who consume far more radio than the total U.S. population.”

THE ILCC MAKES A GRAND MUSICAL ENTRANCE

Based on the materials available on the ILCC archives, music programming at the turn of the century and for the next 20 years consisted of two strands: individual concerts that truly reflected the sheer diversity of Pan-Latino musical expressions and, from 2006 until 2019, programming focused exclusively on classical, experimental and instrumental music from Iberoamerica and the United States through an annual three-month long Festival in the fall.

The first concert of the new decade, century and millennium of which the the newly rebranded ILCC has any record of on its archives featured the one and only, the queen of the EGOTs (term used to refer to those artists who have won the Emmy, the Grammy, the Oscar and the Tony) Rita Moreno. And if that was, indeed, truly the first concert of the 2000s for the ILCC, what a way to kick off the newly rebranded organization!

Held on March 8, 2001 at the now shuttered Black Orchid Classic Nightclub on the Pipers Alley Complex in Chicago’s Old Town neighborhood, An Evening with Rita Moreno, was a cabaret-style performance featuring a range of Broadway tunes, jazz, blues, Latin music and even swing, with a couple of stories and anecdotes thrown in for good measure. 

The ILCC presented Rita that evening with the Gloria Lifetime Achievement Award for her outstanding artistic contributions and humanitarian contributions to society. Then 26th Ward Alderman Billy Ocasio also presented her with an official proclamation declaring March 8 as Rita Moreno Day. Proceeds of the event, which included cocktails and a buffet dinner, were used to fund the ILCC’s operations and events. 

The ILCC ramped up its music programming that fall, beginning with Ellas y su rumba: The Women of Latin Music on September 13, 2001 at Three Arts Club in the Gold Coast neighborhood, a residence built in 1914 for young women studying music, drama and the visual arts. The music and dance program featured several local women artists including dance instructor Lisa “La Boriqua” from Latin Street Dancing, Ensemble Español founder Libby Komaiko, and singer Clara Beatriz Jaramillo, among others. Today, this historic venue is part of a redesigned 70,000 square foot design gallery blurring, according to its website, “the lines between residential and retail, indoors and outdoors, home and hospitality.”

The Three Arts Club would also be the host for a special performance by Spanish classical pianist Sylvia Torán with reception and silent auction on October 5, 2001, the third of three performances she offered throughout the city, including one on October 1 at Columbia College’s Music Center and on the 3rd at Northeastern Illinois University’s Recital Hall.

Tango reared its head again two weeks later, on October 14, with a performance (originally scheduled for April 21) from Opus Cuatro, the highly acclaimed Argentinian a cappella group featuring a special guest appearance by Chicago dance studio Tango 21 at the University of Illinois-Chicago’s Inner Circle Auditorium. Then, in partnership with the Chicago Humanities Festival, the ILCC presented a program of Ecuadorian dance and music on November 10, 2001 at Vittum Theater in West Town. The program included a performance by Ecuadorian dancer Wilson Pico of The Materials of Rage and Love, a series of solo dances, and musical group Tribus Futuras performing selections from their album Children of the Wind.

However, the true highlight of this fall season was the Chicago debut of acclaimed Cuban pianist Ernán López-Nussa at the Getz Theater on September 26. A founding member of the jazz fusion group Afrocuba and himself the head of a music dynasty (not unlike the Valdés and Rubalcaba dynasties) that includes pianist Harold López-Nussa and drummer Ruy Adrián López-Nussa (nephews), Ernán performed tracks from his landmark album From Havana to Rio while revisiting the history of Cuban piano music.

And that was only 2001!

Additional musicians presented by the ILCC in the following five years include: David Puerta, master of the Colombian tiple, a twelve-string instrument, three-fourths the size of a classical guitar at Vittum Theater on July 18, 2002 as part of Chicago’s Colombian Independence Day celebrations; Peruvian guitarist and charango player Julio Humala at Loyola University’s Sullivan Center on July 26, 2002; a special Christmas concert featuring Latin jazz and salsa pianist Samuel del Real on December 11, 2002 at the Hothouse; and a taste of things to come: A Musical Journey Through Latin America Art Songs, a selection of classical vocal music interpreted by Colombian soprano Patricia Caicedo and pianist Eugenia Gassull on piano at Columbia College’s Concert Hall on October 5, 2005.

A rare Chicago performance by Brazil’s “Godmother of samba” Beth Carvalho at the Logan Square Auditorium on June 23, 2005 was another significant highlight of the ILCC’s musical programming in these first five years of the new decade, century and millennium. Recognized with a Latin Recording Academy® Lifetime Achievement Award at the 13th Annual Latin GRAMMY Awards® and a Latin GRAMMY® for Best Samba/Pagode Album for Nosso Samba Tá Na Rua, Carvalho helped bring underrated composers the recognition they deserved, becoming a driving force in the modernization of samba in the ’80s, while preserving its roots. She passed away in 2019.

A SHIFT IN MUSICAL GEARS

In 2006, the ILCC’s music programming shifted gears: for the following 13 years, it would be dominated by classical, instrumental and avant-garde concerts from Latin America, Spain and Latino musicians living in Chicago. It started with two concerts at St. James Cathedral and Columbia College on October 21 and 27, 2006 under the banner First Latino Symphonic Festival of Chicago. Positioned as “a premier concert series of Latino composers by Latino soloists designed to pay homage to Latin American and Spanish composers in the field of classical music,” the festival featured the world premiere of Gustavo Leone’s Cantico del Popol Vuh performed by the Latino Chamber Orchestra and DePaul University’s Chorus and a performance by the Latino Chamber Musicians of music by Joaquín Turina, Alberto Ginastera and Manuel de Falla, among others.

The following year, under the artistic direction of composers and musicians Elbio Barilari and Gustavo Leone, the Festival changed its name to the Latino Music Festival, and pretty quickly became Chicago’s only Latin American music festival dedicated in its entirety to Latin American, Spanish and Portuguese classical, instrumental and experimental music in all its forms, from solo performances to string quartets to orchestral arrangements.

That first festival under Barilari’s and Leone’s direction presented seven free concerts and one public forum on Latin American music with Grammy® Award winning classical composer Osvaldo Golijov (then a composer-in-residence at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra), from October 28-December 16, 2007. Locations included Lake Forest College, Chicago Cultural Center’s Preston Bradley Hall, Merit School of Music, Orchestra Hall (now Symphony Center), and Columbia College.

The following year, the Festival featured 16 concerts of Latin American and Spanish Music from the Baroque to the 21st Century over three and a half months in such venues as the Harris Theatre for Dance and Music, Ravinia Festival, Symphony Center, Chicago Cultural Center, DePaul University, Merit School of Music, The International House, St. Luke’s Lutheran Church and Lyon & Healy Concert Hall. The number of concerts went up to 20 in 2009 and so did the number of venues which now included the Art Institute of Chicago, SPACE in Evanston and the University of Wisconsin-Parkside in Kenosha.

By 2012, the number of concerts had increased to 27. For the following seven years, the number of concerts would average between 20-24 per year.

Festival highlights include: Fareed Haque’s “Hymn of the Ancients,” an exploration of classical Indian music at the Humboldt Park Boathouse; a concert by the legendary Paquito D’Rivera celebrating the second anniversary of WFMT 98.8’s nationally syndicated radio program “Fiesta!”, hosted by Barilari; a special performance of Quilapayún’s “Cantata Santa María de Iquique” by Chicago’s very own Sones de Mexico Ensemble about the struggle of the workers on the salt fields of northern Chile in the early part of the 20^th Century; and the Chicago debut of the Recycled Instruments Orchestra of Cateura, an orchestra comprised of boys, girls, teenagers and young adults with limited access to resources, who live in the Bañado Sur community, located next to the Cateura landfill, in Asuncion, Paraguay who perform musical pieces using instruments elaborated with garbage reclaimed from the landfill.

Then came COVID-19. The pandemic gave ILCC executive director Pepe Vargas the opportunity to reinvent the Festival as a year-round music series that would present a wide overview of the many musical styles representing the Latino diaspora worldwide. The ILCC formally launched the series in 2021 with seven virtual concerts featuring Spanish pianist/composer Carlos Bianchini’s audiovisual avant-garde spectacle Yo, Piano; a centennial celebration of the works of Argentinian composer Astor Piazzolla by the KFune Duo (Sept. 29); and a musical tribute to Spanish poet Federico García Lorca by Colombian soprano Wilma Rueda and German guitarist Christian Reichert. The concerts were made available virtually to residents of Illinois and the Midwest states of Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana.

End of Part One.

As part of its fundraising campaign commemorating its 25th anniversary, the International Latino Cultural Center will be hosting a dinner celebration at CineCity Studios, 2429 West 14th St. on Friday, November 14, featuring a solo performance from Grammy® and Latin Grammy® Award winning artist Alex Cuba and the very best in Latino cuisine. Doors open at 6 p.m. For more information, visit the ILCC’s official fundraising dinner page. 

Unable to make the event? Never fear, you can still be part of our campaign with your individual contribution. Every single bit helps our mission to preserve in the city of Chicago a space for Pan-Latino arts in all its glorious disciplines. For more information on individual giving visit our individual giving page.

The International Latino Cultural Center of Chicago is a 501(3)(c) nonprofit cultural organization. All contributions are tax-deductible to the full extent allowed by the law.