21 Cartas awarded RACC Grant

Photo by Adolfo Cantú-Villarreal.

In May, I was awarded a Regional Arts & Culture Council project grant for 21 Cartas, a song cycle based on letters written by mothers held at an immigrant detention center in Dilley, Texas. I am delighted to be collaborating with the luminescent singer/songwriter Edna Vazquez to write songs based these powerful letters collected on Mother's Day 2016 which we will present in concert on May 10th at Portland's The Alberta Rose Theatre and May 11th at the Glenn & Viola Walters Cultural Arts Center in Hillsboro, Oregon. When Edna and I first started discussing this project, there was no press coverage of children being separated from their families at the border, and I shudder to think of what we might be facing by the time May arrives. She and I have been furiously composing for the past six weeks and have started dreaming up the visual elements with filmmaker Adolfo Cantú-Villarreal. We hope this project will illuminate the plight and the incredible courage of these Latina women. I hope you will save the dates for these performances.

Read more about the awarded projects here.