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Celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the Puerto Rican Cultural Project:

Part 1 - The Concerts by MANUEL FRAU-RAMOS

Note of the author - This is the first of a two-part art article dedicated to the history of the Puerto Rican Cultural Project (PRCP). Part 1 covers the series of concerts organized or supported by PRCP during the last ten years. Part 2 will cover other events organized by PRCP, such the Puerto Rican/Latino speaker series. One decade ago, on July 31, 2012 a group of local Puerto Rican residents met in the Holyoke Public Library to organize an educational-cultural group. The outcome of this meeting was the creation of El Proyecto Cultural Puertorriqueño / The Puerto Rican Cultural Project (PRCP). María Págan, Director of the Holyoke Public Library, Miriam Fuentes (Producciones Yerbamor), William Cumpiano (El Proyecto del Cuatro), Gaddier-Rosario (Gaddier Fine Art Studio), Jeanette Rodríguez (Executive Director/ La Esperanza: The Hope of the Pioneer Valley), Waleska Santiago Centeno (independent curator), Lucila Santana (journalist) and Manuel Frau Ramos, co-founder of El Sol Latino and member of the Board of the Holyoke Public Library, became the organizers of PRCP. Shortly after, Dr. Catherine Dower, then professor of music history and literature art at Westfield State University, joined PRCP. She is the author of the book Puerto Rican Music Following The Spanish American War published in 1983. Later on, other members joined PRCP - Charlie Berríos, a tenor and a local public school teacher, Carlos Santiago, a master santos carver, and Lucy Sánchez, a small business entrepreneur. At this moment, PRCP is composed of the following members - GaddierRosario, María Págan, Lucila Santana, Lucy Sánchez, and Manuel Frau Ramos. The Puerto Rican Cultural Project’s mission is to meet the cultural and educational needs of the growing Puerto Rican community of the region. PRCP looks to promote, highlight and making visible the cultural and social contributions of Puerto Ricans in the region. Four months after the first meeting, on November 26, 2012, PRCP became an unincorporated group of volunteers associated to the Holyoke Public Library (HPL). PRCP’s first event was a collaborative project with the Puerto Rican Cuatro Project. During the months of October and November 2012, a series of documentaries were screened along with a pop up exhibition of posters depicting Puerto Rico’s national musical instrument, the cuatro. The film Documentary Series featured Our Cuatro: Vol. 1 & Vol. 2 – The Puerto Rican Décima – From Cidra to Springfield: Miguel Gónzalez. The event was part of “Envision Depot Square Holyoke,” a collaborative project based in Holyoke and organized by the UMass-Amherst Architecture + Design Program. On December 2022, PRCP organized a ground breaking bilingual cultural event, our 1st concert, From la Montaña to Main Street: The Cuatro Concert. This unprecedented concert brought together two outstanding musicians, Jeff Kust, a Chicago-native world-renowned composer and guitar player who adopted the cuatro as his signature musical instrument, and José González, guitarist, composer, and virtuoso cuatro player from Puerto Rico. The success of the concert opened the door to establishing an annual holiday concert that, along with PRCP’s speaker series, became the signature events of the organization. Six more concerts followed. The 2nd musical event, Roulé Candela on Main Street – Afro-Caribbean and Carols Concert featuring William Cepeda, Lydia Pérez and Yoruba 2 was held on December 2013. It also featured tenor Charlie Berríos, accompanied by cuatro player and classical guitarist Lorena Garay. William Cepeda is a Grammy-nominated artist and composer that revolutionized the field of Latin music in 1992 with his introduction of Afro-Rican Jazz, an innovative blend of world music, progressive jazz and traditional Afro-Puerto Rican roots and folk music and dance. Lydia Pérez is a performer and cultural educator/activist in the U.S. and Puerto Rico and the founder and CEO of the Puerto Rican Institute for Arts and Advocacy, Inc., a non-profit organization that offer Afro-Caribbean Arts Programs based in Rhode Island. Puerto Rican Charlie Berríos is a tenor who has performed with some of the most prestigious opera companies in Germany, Italy and France. In this concert he sang s ome of the most beloved traditional Puerto Rican villancicos (Christmas carols). Our 3rd Concert was held on December 2014, Mambo on Main Street – A Latin Big Band, featuring Joe Vélez and his 19 piece band - Creación Big Band, accompanied by singers Casey Ortíz, Richard Zayas and Tres Cubano guitar player Orlando Zayas. Joe Vélez, a versatile musician that plays Latin piano, cuatro, classical/electric/Latin guitar and Latin percussion is considered one of the primary exponents of Latin Jazz in Western Massachusetts.

On January 2016, Puerto Rico Canta on Main Street, our 4th Concert, featured Freddy Rivera Angulo and its group Los Gigantes de la Plena. Rivera Angulo, a local bomba and plena musician, founded Los Gigantes de la Plena with the commitment to promote Puerto Rican and Afro-Caribbean culture to a new generation. Our 5th Concert, on December 2016, was Parranda on Main Street, featuring Los Cantores del Coquí under the direction of Roberto Piñeiro with Sharina “La Reinita que Canta” and singer Fernando González Zayas, popularly known as El Trovador Gigante de Juana Díaz. The well-known cuatrista Pedro Álvarez also participated. The program featured a special performance by a duo of tenor Charlie Berrios and Axel Gabriel Cabrera Lavozkid, better known as Axel Cabrera of “La Voz Kids.”

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El Sol Latino August 2022 Celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the Puerto Rican Cultural Project: Part 1 - The Concerts

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The 6th Concert, on December 2017, was El Caribe on Main Street – A Concert of Caribbean Rhythms and featured José González and Banda Criolla, and guest singer tenor Charlie Berríos. Banda Criolla is considered New England’s hottest Latin music ensemble, bringing top Cuban, Venezuelan, Puerto Rican, and Cuban musicians together onstage, creating “an explosive Caribbean Fiesta!” The group is composed of Ahmed González – Puerto Rican, René González - Puerto Rican, Abe Sánchez - Venezuelan William Rodríguez – Cuban, and Edilio Bermúdez - Venezuelan. Selma Berríos, Puerto Rican guest vocalist, performed with the group. This concert was dedicated to the many Puerto Rican families who had recently arrived in the Pioneer Valley after hurricanes Irma and María. On December 2018 we held our 7th Concert, Jazz Latino on Main Street, with Dr. José Valentino. Valentino is an internationally acclaimed recording and performing artist, an EMMY® Award Winner, saxophonist, and GRAMMY® Award Winning composer. At that time he was an Assistant Professor of Music Business, Production, and Jazz at Lee University (TN). On August 2019, Romantic Spanish Guitar Concert, the first of two smallscale performances, was held at the Holyoke Public Library. It featured the duo composed of Orlando L. Zayas and EliezerTorres interpreting popular, semi-classical and Brazilian music. Eliezer’s versatility in the instrument and love for music moves him to interpret different types of music; jíbaro, jazz, pop, classical, boleros, gospel are all part of his repertoire. His fellow guitarists call him “maestro” for his proficiency, unique style, precise fast fingers, and soft touch on his guitar strings. Zayas showed an interest in music and learned to play the guitar while still in High School. In 2013 he began to teach himself (with help of online videos) the “Cuban Tres”, an instrument that he had always found to be very versatile to play different types of music. During the two long years of the COVID pandemic, HPL/ PRCP kept the musical agenda alive. PRCP became partner of a coalition of regional organizations (Holyoke Media, Nueva Esperanza, radioplasma, Hispanic American-Library, El Corazón de Holyoke, El Sol Latino, and City of Holyoke) to support two concerts produced by Ágora Cultural Architects, based in Boston. On December 2020, the virtual concert Aguinaldo a la Banda Allá - Un Regalo de Silverio Pérez was broadcasted via social media. This online show brought together artists from Puerto Rico and Massachusetts. Among the guest artists were Fabiola Méndez, Zayra Pola, Andre Cruz, Sol y Canto, José González, Aidita Encarnación, and Charlie Berríos. The following year, on December 2021, Aguinaldo a la Banda Allá, Un Regalo de Silverio Pérez 2 was launched with a especial presentation by Brendaliz Cepeda and her group Bomba de Aquí. Silverio Pérez is a humorist, writer, singer, musician, composer, chemical engineer and author with four decades of experience in radio and television. He is one of the founding members of the famous group Haciendo Punto en Otro Son, along with Tony Croatto, Josy Latorre, Irvin García and Nano Cabrera. Fabiola Méndez, is a composer, music teacher, and acclaimed performer of the Puerto Rican Cuatro who graduated from Berklee College of Music in Boston. Fabiola is the first student at Berklee College that had the Cuatro as her primary musical instrument. She has collaborated with musicians such as Victoria Sanabria, Cucco Peña, Eddie Palmieri, El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico, Danny Rivera, Edwin Colón Zayas and the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra.