Walking through Schoenberg Music Building on a Thursday night you might hear Brazilian drums grooving. What you’d be hearing is the Brazilian Percussion Workshop and Ensemble organized by Beto Gonzalez, departmental scholar in the Latin American Studies department. “It’s fascinating how just playing Brazilian drums alone can create so much groove and so much melody,” […]
Author Archives: Graciela Sandoval
Bruin celebrates Mexican roots with music
There was a time when Janell Escalera hated mariachi music. It’s hard to believe that the second-year ethnomusicology student and mariachi performer ever felt this way because Escalera now devotes her life to the art form. Tonight Escalera will be performing with the rest of The Music of Mexico Ensemble at Schoenberg Hall’s Jan Popper […]
Truth, reality guide Yerba Tribe’s music
Music is a stronger tie than blood for Armando Ibarra and Francisco Zarathustra, the lead singers and guitarists of the reggae-tinged hip-hop group Yerba Tribe. “We respect each other a lot. A band has a really deep relationship; we’re a tribe,” Zarathustra said. Meshing reggae protest themes with hip-hop and cumbia ballads, the Los Angeles-based […]
Dead event aims to raise awareness
Red and black posters on wooden sticks were sprinkled along the Bruin Walk lawn this week to bring awareness to the missing people of Latin America, the theme of the Day of the Dead celebration hosted by conciencia libre, a campus group dedicated to social equality. Traditionally, Mexicans celebrate and welcome back the souls of […]
Harvey stresses education, gives prizes
In between shouts and claps outside Pauley Pavilion, 100.3 The Beat radio comic Steve Harvey gave his closing remarks focusing on increasing the number of blacks that attend UCLA and universities in general. “Make it possible for others to learn how to do your thing so they can make it,” said Harvey to over 100 […]
Musiq puts on romantic concert
In an event that was heavily promoted by radio station Hot 92 FM as a couples’ romantic concert, Musiq and Truth Hurts offered something for both the singles and pairs Friday at the Wiltern. Truth Hurts opened the concert performing her flirtatious song “Addictive,” her hips swinging to the drum beats and a recorded Hindu […]
Musicians blend music genres in “˜Calle 54′
The Calle 54 concert was off the hook. Treating the Royce audience to music from the Fernando Trueba documentary, the concert did just what the movie project intended by offering a tour of Latin music’s broad, stylistic spectrum. The musicians didn’t perform just jazz music. The show was a mixture of jazz, Bossa Nova and […]