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Mother Language Day
Mar 1, 2016 @ 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
INTERNATIONAL MOTHER LANGUAGE DAY
The celebration of the International Mother Language Day will include a multilingual poetry reading, an exhibition of illustrations based on the Galician writer Lois Pereiro, and a concert by Uxía & Narf, two of the most important and influential musicians from Galicia (Spain), with Barbara Morrison as a special guest.
Uxía & Narf are touring the U.S. for the first time, performing their acclaimed Baladas da Galiza imaxinaria. Their joint musical project features classics from both musicians, including poems by such writers as Rosalía de Castro, Castelao and Federico García Lorca; original compositions; and adaptations of traditional alalás, the oldest and best-known form of Galician music.
Building bridges across cultures through music, they created their respective repertoires after years of traveling and exchanging experiences with artists from Angola, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Mozambique, Portugal, Cape Verde, or Guinea-Bissau.
Uxía, regarded as the grande dame of Galician music, is celebrating 30 years of an artistic career that made her one of the most popular and valued musicians from Galicia. Among other projects, she is the artistic director of the International Lusophone Festival, Cantos na Mare.
Fran Pérez (“Narf”) is one of the most innovative artists from the last two decades in Galicia. Among other works, he developed a project of musical fusion in Mozambique in which he combined the electric guitar with the Chopi traditional instrument, the timbila, and Aló irmão!, his collaboration with Manecas Costa (from Guinea-Bissau) reached number one during three weeks on the Top 10 chart of RTP Africa.
This event is co-sponsored by the UCLA Spanish and Portuguese Department, the Department of Musicology, the Dean of Humanities, the Center for European and Russian Studies, the Office of Instructional Development, and SPAIN Arts & Culture. The exhibition is possible thanks to Trabalingua (University of Vigo) and BööMDïas, and the concert is produced by Culturactiva.