Ori-Gen Festival at Drom

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Two nights of music, September 9th and 10th at Drom connected audiences to music of the Latin America. The Ori-Gen Festival was initiated by a collective of seasoned New York City musicians who have impacted both the international and local scene individually. Primarily of Latin American origins, bonds formed based on common experience united them to call attention to the musical diversity found in the city.

The September 10th show featured collaborations that challenged the listener as well as drawing on diverse musical roots. It was reflective of a uniquely New York experience, where, in clubs like Terraza 7 in Queens and Barbes in Brooklyn, or through Center of Traditional Music and Dance or the Hostos Center in the Bronx, musicians experiment and integrate latin traditions, jazz and improvisation. 

Experimental duo Chuño is Franco Pinna and Sofia Tosello. Pinna played the “Arpa Legüera”, an instrument that he created. The prototype was made in 2013 from a piece of wood , guitar strings and a Bombo Legüero as a resonator. It evokes comparisons to the Charango, African Kora, and Asian Koto.  Sofia Tosello, a vocalist from Cordoba, Argentina began singing professionally at age 8, influenced by Tango, Jazz and Argentine folkloric music growing up, she fuses these elements into her current work including the recently released '“Lluvia Fue”, a collaboration with Latin Grammy winner Fernando Otero

Mireya Ramos vocalist and violinist and founder of Flor de Toloache, performed a passionate set that drew on her recent solo projects in which she collaborated with artists such as quatro player Jorge Glem, vocalist Sonia Montez, and voclaist Gaby Moreno and covering artists such as David Bowie and Linda Ronstadt. 

Samuel Torres, the Colombian born percussionist and composer grew up in a family of musicians performed in duet format with Eric Kurimsky, an american who traveled to Peru to master the afro-peruvian style of guitar playing that he discovered as an adult.

Aclaimed vocalist Kavita Shah has collaborated with artists from around the world. Her vocal work goes hand in hand with her ethnographic research into musical traditions from West Africa, Brazil and India. A native New Yorker of Indian descent on this night she paid tribute to Cesaria Evora who passed away 10 years ago. The set including the Teofilo Chantre written classic “Amor di Mundo”. She was backed by noted Cape Verdean musicians Kim Alves on keyboards and Zeui Depina on cavalquinho with vocalist Fantcha performing as well. 

In her bio Shah describes her musical approach"I see myself as a cultural interlocutor. A singer can play an almost mystical role, connecting different elements on stage with an audience through the human voice, through words. My experience of diaspora has not exactly been linear, but more like a kaleidoscope, so musically, I wanted to combine different elements that I love in a way that may be surprising to others but makes sense to me.”

The Ori-Gen Collective includes bassist  Pablo Aslan; singer  Lara Bello; percussionist Rogerio Bocatto; bassist  Alexis Cuadrado; arts writer and musician Fernando González; vocalist and guitarist Juancho Herrera; pianist Arturo O’Farrill;  singer  Sofia Rei;  drummer Antonio Sánchez, singer  Kavita Shah; percussionist  Samuel Torres; trombonist  Papo Vázquez and saxophonist Miguel Zenón.

Hearing collaborations created within the Ori-Gen collective in local venues is a perk of living in the city but deserves to be heard by a broader audience. Artuo O’Farrill says: “We started this Collective simply because it didn’t exist, and many of us felt there was a need for it”. “When surveying the landscape of festivals, we saw a decided lack of Latino presence, and what presence we had, was dictated by promoters who didn’t necessarily have any expertise in our music. So we banded together to share our experiences and resources.”