A report from the worldwide pageant of feminine refrain and e Latin Grammys

I used to be reminded of a t-shirt I noticed of a girl lst week that learn “The Future is Feminine”.  

Think about:  the Latin Grammys final weekend was a romp for girls, approaching the heels of Taylor Swift’s Eras tour and her blockbuster film success. If that was not, sufficient, this weekend I went to the opening festivities of the Competition Internacional de Coros Femininos en Latin America (FICFE) ,  a weeklong set of concert events, workshops, and events for 300+ ladies in choruses and singing teams  from round Latin Americas (and some different international locations).

Plenty of feminine music.  What does it imply?

Let’s begin with the FICFE opening. FICFE is an impartial cultural mission created to help and promote music initially composed for feminine voices, and to make the presence of ladies extra seen in Latin American music. It supplies areas for assembly and exchanges between feminine choral teams from Latin America and around the globe (together with Finland !), sharing music, repertoires, tasks, and cultural experiences. It really works by way of concert events, conferences, and workshops.

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The FICFE Live performance collection/conferenceis held each two years in numerous Latin American international locations. Its first collection was within the metropolis of Puerto Madryn in Argentina in November 2019. Its second collection  is that this week in Tlaquepaque, part of Guadalajara well-known as a Pueblo Magico. The opening live performance was held in an enormous open-ceilinged room within the El Regugeo Centro de Cultural, a website filled with historical past and legends, with nineteenth century structure, patios, chapels, and domes. 300 ladies (and a few males like myself) gathered and sang. The stage was occupied by a choral group from the College of Guadalajara and Mayhuel Coro Feminina , the native choral group of FICFE and the live performance organizer. At many factors through the songs from the stage, the 200+ ladies singers within the seats joined in filling the room with heavenly voices.

The conductor/music director and occasion organizer is a Cuban girl, Wilma Verrier, with the vitality of a small nuclear reactor and the voice of an angel who also can belt. So it was no shock when the final quantity was a excessive vitality Cuban dance music and the complete auditorium erupted in hip-shaking, conga traces, and cheering and singing. My spouse and I have been pulled up on stage together with 30 different individuals and danced till the conga line grabbed us. The feminine music vitality virtually elevated the block-long constructing.

Feminine musical vitality additionally virtually elevated the FIBES Convention and Exhibition Centre in Seville, Spain, through the  Latin Grammys final weekend. Prime prizes went to ladies: Karol G, Shakira, and Natalia Lafourcade. Karol G gained Album of the 12 months, and have become solely the second girl to win a Latin Grammy for a musica úrbana album,   

File of the 12 months went to  a girl,  Mexico’s Natalia Lafourcade  for “De Todas las Flores”  giving her the report  for many Latin Grammys in historical past. This 12 months’s award for Particular person of the 12 months went to a girl, Laura Pausini, an Italian singer who has sung largely in Spanish.  And Greatest new artist went to a girl, Venezuelan singer/songwriter Juliana Velásquez. The dance numbers, and interstitial performances have been largely  by ladies, together with the music opening for the primary awards ceremony which started with the Spanish songwriter Rosalía.

 After all, many males collected the gold gramophones, particularly within the manufacturing classes, and may, given gthe excessive stage of high quality their work represented. However on the topline, ladies are rising as a dominating power in elements of the tradition that’s the embodiment of machismo.  As I’ve mentioned earlier than, ladies make up the most important marketplace for music and are the most important per centage of music streamers. And so they more and more like music by ladies.   This tells me that The Future (of Latin Music) is Feminine.

Get your t-shirts prepared.

Patrick O’Heffernan

(Word. this might be my final column till Dec. 19)