Celebrate México NOW: Coro Acardenchado
Celebrate México NOW: Coro Acardenchado
Americas Society presented the U.S. debut of the Mexico City-based choir that revives a remarkable traditional music genre.
Coro Acardenchado is a choral music project founded by Juan Pablo Villa in 2016 whose purpose is to preserve and disseminate the canto cardenche style through community singing. The ensemble was founded and is directed by Villa in collaboration with María Emilia Martínez and Leika Mochán.
This extraordinary genre of Mexican traditional music, little known outside the country, originated among the farmhands in the northern state of Durango at the end of the 19th century. The plaintive songs are performed by singers without instrumental accompaniment and the style takes its name from the thorns of a cactus plant, whose removal is painful but necessary.
Their concerts offer the audience a unique musical experience, different from that of a traditional choir, including the truthful adaptation and creative re-imagining of traditional songs and stage settings that include choreography and extended vocal techniques.
This Americas Society event was hosted in collaboration with the Celebrate México NOW Festival.
Funders
The MetLife Foundation Music of the Americas concert series is made possible by the generous support of Presenting Sponsor MetLife Foundation.
The 2024-2025 series is also supported, in part, by the Howard Gilman Foundation, Augustine Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, Mex-Am Cultural Foundation, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, and Mid Atlantic Arts.
