Cultural Heritage Through Festivals and Music of Colombia and Louisiana

The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Archive presents the second Allison Miner Series: Cultural Heritage Through Festivals & Music of Colombia and Louisiana on Wednesday, May 1, 2024 at the George and Joyce Wein Jazz & Heritage Center.

The series is free and open to the public, with back-to-back engaging presentations about festivals, heritage, and the brass bands that unite us. Doors open at 6 pm; panels begin at 6:15 pm and 7:45pm. The lectures will also be streamed on Youtube.

These two presentations will celebrate the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and our Expedia Cultural Exchange country, Colombia!

About the Allison Miner Series:

The Allison Miner Series is an initiative of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation Archive to celebrate Jazz Fest and Archive founder Allison Miner, and highlight research, scholarship, and projects that utilize the historic collections in the Jazz & Heritage Archive.

First Presentation

These Drums of Ours: Experiencing Cultural Heritage in two festivals (New Orleans and Cali, Colombia)

Manuel Sevilla is a Colombian anthropologist who received a Jazz & Heritage Archive Fellowship in 2015.

Manuel Sevilla's exploration of the Petronio Alvarez Festival in Cali, Colombia, and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival sheds light on the rich tapestry of Cultural Heritage across countries and cultures. By examining the parallel experiences of attendees and participants, Sevilla uncovers how these festivals foster the experience of Cultural Heritage through a combination of cognitive processes. The fusion of these processes creates a unique axis through which Cultural Heritage is both experienced and transmitted.

In these festivals, Cultural Heritage is not merely a static entity to be observed, but a dynamic and living tradition that is embodied and enacted by attendees and participants alike. The festival experience becomes a vehicle for the transmission of knowledge, where the informal and experiential learning that occurs through immersion in the festivities is just as significant as formal instruction. Through direct experience, sensory immersion, interaction with others, and the embodiment of cultural practices all contribute to a deeper comprehension of the complexities inherent in Cultural Heritage.

Through Sevilla’s passionate exploration, we gain insight into the persistence and evolution of culture, and the universal language through which heritage is communicated. The Petronio Alvarez Festival and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival serve as vibrant celebrations of cultural diversity, inviting us to embrace the unity among our cultures while cherishing their unique expressions.

Second Presentation:

Chirimia and New Orleans Brass Band Music: A common language. Panelists, Leonidas Valencia, Tomás Montoya, and Ana María Ochoa. Moderated by Alejandro Montaña Ibáñez, Ministry of Culture of Colombia.

Both the Chirimía Chocoana and New Orleans Brass Bands are deeply rooted cultural manifestations that reflect and celebrate the history and diversity of their communities through music. These musical forms not only provide entertainment, but also foster community cohesion, the transmission of history, and the affirmation of cultural identities. As living expressions of resilience and joy, they continue to adapt and resonate with today's generations, keeping alive the flame of their rich cultural heritage.

This conversation highlights the common socio-cultural environment and musical language between Chirimía and the New Orleans Brass Bands, in a way to explore the universal expressions and experiences that these musical traditions share, despite originating in different geographical contexts.

About the Participants:

Manuel Sevilla

Phd in Anthropology (University of Toronto) and B.A. in Journalism (Universidad del Valle, Colombia). Professor at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana Cali, researcher at POIESIS group, and coordinator of the Musicas del Rio program. NatGeo Explorer since 2020 and a fellow of the Latin Grammy Foundation, the New Orleans Jazz Festival Archive, the Pulitzer Center, and the Colombian Ministry of Culture, among others. Member of the National Council of Cultural Heritage (2015-2022) and of the Conceptual Committee of the Festival Petronio Álvarez (2009-present). His research topics are cultural heritage, cultural production of music and the communication of sciences. In the field of cultural heritage and music, he has worked with traditional musicians from the Caribbean and Pacific coasts in Colombia, and has published on the circulation of music from the Pacific and the appropriation of musical heritage. In the field of migration studies he has worked on the role of cultural heritage as a platform for economic and symbolic development among migrants in Colombia. In the artistic field, he has led musical and theatrical projects on Colombian cultural heritage, from the perspective of communication of the sciences through the performing arts.

Leonidas Valencia

A teacher by profession with knowledge and experience in the development of sociocultural research from the perspective of cultural management, within the organizational processes of the cultural sector of Chocó and the Colombian Pacific. Cultural researcher and manager. Valencia plays Euphonium, trombone, Guitar, Pacific Percussion, Recorder and attended the Isaac Rodriguez Martinez de Quibdó School of Music. He also attended School of Business Administration (E.A.N); Specialist in Public Administration and in Development of Human Potential (U.A.N); Master in Entrepreneurship and Innovation from the University of Salamanca (Spain).

President of the Music Departmental Council of Chocó (2009 – 2012), Director of Ruta de la Chirimia project (2010 -2013), Advisor to the National Music Plan for Coexistence (2004 – 2013), Delegate to the National Music Council, Director of the Bachelor of Music and Dance program at the Technological University of Chocó, President of the Cultural Research of Chocó Association. Additionally he is Musical Composer and Director of: San Francisco de Asís de Quibdó Band (2006 – 2017), La Contundencia, Grupo Raza, Hinchao y su Gente, Chirimía Tradicional, Boggasonbo Light.

Alejandro Montaña Ibáñez

Master in Colombian music with emphasis on Chirimía Chocoana, and on Symphonic Percussion at the Javeriana University. His musical training at the Higher Institute of Art in Havana, Cuba, interested him in Afro-Latin sonorities. From 2008 to 2018 he worked as a musical trainer with adolescents and children, in different academies and universities, including the Javeriana University, the District Institute for the Protection of Children and Youth, and the District Institute of the Arts (IDARTES). Montaña is a member of the curatorial research team of the marimba room at the National Museum of Colombia, and winner of the 2022 musical ecosystem scholarship as General producer of the “Disco de la percu”, and Winner of the IDARTES 2020 research podcast scholarship. He currently is Coordinator of Music Circulation of the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Knowledge and founding member and director of music group La Mojarra Eléctrica.

Ana María Ochoa

Studied music at the University of British Columbia, and completed a master's degree in Ethnomusicology and Folklore followed by a doctorate in Ethnomusicology at Indiana University.

Ochoa’s work is on histories of listening and the decolonial, on sound studies and climate change, and on the relationship between the creative industries, the literary and the sonic in Latin America and the Caribbean. Her current projects explore the bioacoustics of life and death in colonial histories of the Americas and the relationship between sound, climate change and the colonial. She has been a Distinguished Greenleaf Scholar in Residence at Tulane University (2016) and a Guggenheim Fellow (2007-2008). She has served on the advisory boards of the Society for Cultural Anthropology, and the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.

Her book, Aurality, Listening and Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century Colombia (Duke University Press, 2014) was awarded the Alan Merriam Prize by the Society for Ethnomusicology. She is also the author of Músicas locales en tiempos de globalización (Buenos Aires: Norma 2003) and Entre los Deseos y los Derechos: Un Ensayo Crítico sobre Políticas Culturales (Bogotá: Ministerio de cultura, 2003) and numerous articles in Spanish and English.

Tomás Montoya González

is a photographer, organizer, instructor, and researcher from Santiago de Cuba. Before moving to New Orleans in 2004, he directed the Asociación Hermanos Saiz, a nonprofit for artists and intellectuals. While there, he organized events highlighting emerging artforms, including Cuban Rap, Novísima trova, and contemporary performance and visual art. He also produced community art projects exploring themes of environmentalism, Afro Cuban and Haitian religión, vernacular music, and visual art.

Since 2001 Montoya has documented the “Congas” (traditional street parades) of Santiago. He recently completed a feature-length documentary: “Lazaro and the Shark”, about the Congas with filmmaker and director, William Sabourin.

Montoya is currently an ABD Doctoral Candidate at the Universidad del Oriente, and has published articles in Folklife in Louisiana Home, and the Harvard Review of Latin America. He taught in the Spanish and Portuguese Department at Tulane University from 2008- 2014.

Montoya works with CubaNola Collective to coordinate exchanges between New Orleanian and Cuban artists, including ReBirth Brass Band- La Conga de los Hoyos, Warren Easton High School-Conservatorio Esteban Salas, and Herlin Riley at the Havana Jazz Fest.

Montoya also served as liaison and assistant producer, for the New Orleans JazzFest 2017 dedicated to Cuba. He is a cofounder of “CANOA” (Caribbean and New Orleanian Arts), a new venue soon to be open in New Orleans, Louisiana; he’s also developing a Cultural Center for Arts and Residency in Santiago de Cuba.

Photo: Cobrero from Chocó at Festival Petronio Álvarez (Cali, Colombia). Photo by Carlos Miguel Varona.