It's been a while! Doesn't every blog post start like this?
I've been enjoying the fall colours, and have had plenty of opportunity for highway driving recently. I've wrapped up my second season as Artistic Director of the Summer Music Series at the Grange of Prince Edward Winery. This season, we presented a wide array of concerts, featuring artists like guitarist Debi Botos, Donné Roberts, Wild Bloom band, and Eric St. Laurent. This concert series is such a vibe – it's a place where locals and county visitors can bask in sunshine, have great eats and hear fantastic music. And the musicians love it too, we all enjoy the hang and long summer nights. For the Prince Edward County Jazz festival, we presented Latin Jazz powerhouse Acabana, and the sold out-crowd was in heaven! We are already looking ahead to programming the 2025 Summer Concert Series.
I'm getting to that long end towards…. doctor! Almost there. For eighteen months, I've been writing my Ph.D. dissertation about Dámaso Pérez Prado and the mambo bands of Mexico City! This project has taken me to Havana, Miami, New York City, and of course, Mexico City. I've had a ton of fun reviewing newspaper articles from the last seventy years, and watching mambo films, and reading every known piece of mambo literature (that I could get my hands on). In Mexico City, I had the great pleasure of working in the National Music Archives, and being invited to spend time with mamboist Iván Restrepo, who was a friend of Pérez Prado. Iván holds so much knowledge, he's a real Elder in the scene, and he was married to the coolest Mexico City venue owner, Margo Su. Margo is definitely a source of great inspiration - determination, grit, and brains. I look forward to wrapping up this six-year long project soon, so for now, no news is good news.
While research has been top of mind of late, I am also a first-time published author! I have a book review published in Latin American Music Review/Revista de Música Latino Americana Volume 45, Issue 1, Spring/Summer 2024. I flexed some new skills to read Sounding Latin Music, Hearing the Americas by Jairo Moreno– and loved every minute! I feel the same way to see this publication as I do when releasing new music – it's such a fulfillment of creative effort, it's beautiful to see something exist in print that didn't before, and it's a rush to provide a new perspective or way of seeing the world. And I LOVED the process of working with an editing team.
As for performing, I have plenty of projects demanding brain space, and I'll get to them soon. As I wrap up one enormous project, I keep front of mind; that for me, all the good things in life take time. It's worth the effort to do a great job.
Wishing you a beautiful season, Maarsii,
HB