Music of the Americas

Music of the Americas Americas Society | 680 Park Avenue (at 68th Street), New York, NY | as-coa.org/music

The MetLife Foundation Music of the Americas Concert Series, recipient of the 2014 CMA/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, fulfills an essential part of the cultural mission of Americas Society, annually showcasing dozens of talented artists hailing from across the hemisphere. Presented year-round, the concerts include a wealth of diverse music and performers, ranging from contemporary classi

cal to folk-roots to reggae and jazz. The primary venue for the series is Americas Society’s own Salon Simón Bolivar, an expansive room in the organization’s neo-federal-style headquarters with wide windows, a 15-foot ceiling, and silk fabric walls. Music of the Americas has collaborated with other presenters, including Lincoln Center Out of Doors and the National Museum of the American Indian, and has also presented artists at such prestigious venues as Carnegie Hall’s Weill Hall and the Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Symphony Space. Music of the Americas seeks to further Americas Society’s mission by engaging artists and concertgoers alike in meaningful dialogue through a shared love of excellent music. The series aims to present artists that are both superb musicians in their own right and cultural ambassadors of myriad social and musical traditions, creating a vibrant space and a unique opportunity to hear distinctive and significant music.

06/23/2026

🇪🇨 Saraurku—whose members include Camilo Pupiales, Nayeli Guatemal, Tupac Guatemal, Edison Guatemal, and Inty Guatemal—is an Indigenous group of the Kichwa Karanki people in the Andean province of Imbabura in northern Ecuador.

🌳 They are dedicated to strengthening cultural identity through melodies performed in various tunings, such as Galindo, Granada, Angochagua, and Guanopamba. The lyrics of their songs are dedicated to daily life, love, nature, and plants, reflecting rhythms that are deeply characteristic of their community.

⛰ They sent us this version of traditional music of the Karanki community, on the slopes of the Imbabura volcano.

06/22/2026

💞 In this Father's Day tribute, from Panama City, reggae artist Kandall sent us this version of "333," a song born out of pure love Kandall felt with the start of his family and the birth of his daughter. He performs the song here with Anthony Vega and Mauro Toribio.

06/19/2026

🇪🇨The Ecuadorian Duo Pakta—featuring Otavalo-Kichwa singer Ana Cachimuel and guitarist and singer Óscar Betancourt Campos—sing in Kichwa while playing the guitar, charango, ronroco, Andean wind instruments, and light percussion.

🌱 In this video, they perform the song “Llullugu” by Otavalo-Kichwa singer-songwriter Kaya Cachimuel, a lullaby for the healthy growth of a child.

06/17/2026

🇦🇷 Martín Cecenarro is a guitarist, composer, and educator from Andalgalá in the northeastern Argentine province of Catamarca and guitarist for the band La NN. He has released two albums, Canciones de tregua and Ofrenda y ritual, as well as the single “Distancia.”

🌳 He sent us this version of "Espejo de mi tierra" (Mirror of My Land), a song in which love for the land—and the pain caused by the mistreatment of Pachamama—finds a parallel in the suffering of a mother battling a terminal illness.

06/16/2026

🇨🇷 Costa Rican pianist, producer, and composer Valeria Atkeys sent us this version of her song "Ciudad escondida" (Hidden City), with Pedro Guzmán and Miguel Vargas on bass.

⛰️ The song is inspired by Guayabo de Turrialba, one of the oldest Indigenous settlements in Costa Rica. The song portrays this space on the southern slope of the Turrialba volcano as a place outside of time where universal energies converge with memory and ancestral wisdom. Atkeys says that the song "aims to transmit the feeling of connection with time, nature, and the power that dwells in us through generations."

Atkeys is the founder of Wila Fest, the first large-scale festival in Central America dedicated to women in music.

06/05/2026

🇦🇷 Argentine guitarists Daiana Billoni and Luis Aybar studied classical guitar and perform largely folk music.

🌾 From Catamarca in the northwest of the country, they sent this version of "Milongueo del Ayer" (Yesterday's Milonga), a classic of Argentine guitar music. It is a milonga campera, a style related to the popular music of Argentina's southern region and the interior of the province of Buenos Aires and characterized by rather nostalgic melodies, in contrast to the milonga urbana—the urban style—which is more lively and representative of the city of Buenos Aires.

06/04/2026

🇻🇪 Ensamble A Contratiempo fuses a wide range of world music traditions with deep Afro-Caribbean and Venezuelan roots. The ensemble features the brothers Tolosa, with Ángel on harp and José Luis on the cuatro, Venezuela’s emblematic four-string guitar.

🌺 In this video, they play "Orquídea," composed in 1960 by Hugo Blanco, a major figure in 20th-century Venezuelan popular music who also composed the classic "El burrito sabanero." The foundational work of a unique rhythmic genre, "Orquídea" employs a 4/4 time signature and fuses melodic sophistication with Caribbean freshness.

06/03/2026

🇪🇨 Upa—featuring Rafaela Medina, Sebastián Oviedo, and Carlos Villagómez—is an Ecuadoran musical project designed for young children, seeking to create an atmosphere of connection and love between the baby and their loved ones. Through songs, this project aims to accompany and enrich the baby's daily routine, transforming it into an experience filled with music and joy.

🌜 From Quito, they sent us this viedo of “Canción de cuna," a sweet lullaby composed by Medina that invites us to connect with our babies during the quiet hours of the night and sleep. Guitars and mandolins, bombos and chajchas, synthesizers and vocals come together in this track to become a part of our children’s daily routine.

06/02/2026

🇨🇷 Valeria Atkeys is a Costa Rican pianist, producer, and composer. She is the founder of Wila Fest, the first large-scale festival in Central America dedicated to women in music.

🌚 From Heredia, Atkeys and Natalia Serna sent us this video of "Viento de noche" ("Night Wind"), an intimate and serene song in a simple acoustic arrangement featuring piano, guitar, and vocals that conveys that unique sense of well-being that courses through the body when everything feels in harmony, born from an encounter beneath the starry skies of Guanacaste.

05/27/2026

🇵🇦 Paisaxe Ensamble is back with an arrangement by Andrés Carrizo of "Cantan las cigarras" ("The Cicadas Sing"), a piece included in the collection Las Tonadas del Trópico Niño, published by Panamanian composer and musicologist Gonzalo Brenes in 1955. The project started in 1936 as an educational and research initiative, and the seventy songs included in the publication have become extemely popular in the country's schools and have been recorded by several Panamanian musicians. "Cantan las cigarras" is set to lyrics by Fernando Luján.

Paisaxe Ensamble features countertenor Fernando Bustos, clarinetist Alexis Fong, violinist Oryana Racines, violist José Pabuence, cellist Yumiko Tokumoto, bassist Mar Alzamora, and guitarist Víctor Villarreal.

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