Three-time Grammy nominated Cuban group Tiempo Libre will perform at 8 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 7 at Lafayette College’s Williams Center for the Arts.
Tickets are $20 and can be purchased by calling the box office at (610) 330-5009 weekdays between noon-2 p.m. and 4-5 p.m., plus one hour before the performance.
A composer’s chat will precede the performance at 7 p.m. in room 108 of the Williams Center for the Arts.
Equally at home in concert halls, jazz clubs and dance venues, Tiempo Libre’s Miami-based members are true modern heirs to the rich tradition of the music of their native Cuba. Classically trained at Cuba’s premier conservatories, today the group is a hit around the world, celebrated for its sophisticated performances of timba, a joyous mix of high-voltage Latin jazz and the seductive rhythms of son.
Their recent Sony Masterworks release My Secret Radio evokes Tiempo Libre’s teenage years in Cuba, a time when the government forbade its citizens to listen to American music. Inspired by their Afro-Cuban tradition, but eager to catch the new trends and sounds coming from the United States, Tiempo Libre’s members fashioned homemade antennas and secretly listened to the music pulsating from Miami radio stations at night. These secret radio sessions fueled Tiempo Libre’s dreams of living in America, free to perform their songs and build the careers they wanted.
Their visionary musical director, Jorge Gómez, now steers the ensemble’s touring repertory forward, clinging firmly to the musical elements of their cultural ancestry while also incorporating elements of American jazz and pop, with a particular fondness for the core American voices which reached Cuban homes by radio—Michael Jackson, Chaka Khan, Gloria Estefan, and Earth, Wind & Fire.
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Photo Credit: Photo: Elvis Suarez of GlassWorks Muitimedia
Higher resolution photos available upon request.
Tiempo Libre Press Contact: Jonathan Bourse; jbourse@imgartists.com
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Kathleen Parrish
Associate Director of Media Relations
Lafayette College
Communications Division
Easton, PA 18042
parrishk@lafayette.edu
www.lafayette.edu