By: Ashmar Mandou

Grammy® Award-winning Chicana musician, composer, and feminist artist Martha Gonzalez is known for her influential ability of brining communities together through the power of music. “I see music as a tool of dialogue,” said Gonzalez. “As a Chicana artivista, music and the power it invokes is at the heart of my practice as a musician, scholar, and activist.” Gonzalez has made an impact in the Los Angeles Chicano music scene with her award winning band Quetzal where social issues, love, history are all topics of exploration through the lyrics of their songs. Gonzalez’s silky voice connects audiences to their past, present, and future and she is bringing her love of music to Chicago for a one-night performance as part of the Boleros De Noche series, A Night of Romance and Rhythm. Gonzalez spoke to Lawndale News about what the audience can expect to hear and the importance of honoring tradition.

Lawndale News: You will be in Chicago in a few days for A Night of Romance and Rhythm. What can the audience expect from A Night of Romance and Rhythm?

Marth Gonzalez: Well, you can expect a fun night of a repertoire of traditional boleros from different parts of Latin America. It’s a show where the repertoire has been carefully selected to sort of display different moments of love the beginning of love, the middle of love, and then the full story and spectrum of what love can give us. It’s going to be a lot of fun. It’s about sustaining our traditions and reminding ourselves of the beautiful music that so many of our Latin American composers have composed over the many decades.

LN: You describe yourself as a Chicana artivista. Talk to me about the meaning and the importance of being a Chicana artivista?

MG: I consider myself a Chicana. It’s a chosen identity and it’s rooted in a socio-political ideology and I recognize the social movements of the 1960s and 70s and those movements garnered a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to make sure our culture was included in schools. It was a political and social representation, so I identify very much with that movement because I recognize that some of the opportunities that I had taken advantage of were instilled by that generation. So, that’s where the Chicana part comes in, but the artivista side of it is really, sort of, looking at art, music, and culture as process. So, I’m not only a musician and singer on stage, I also take very seriously my role and responsibility in enacting culture. For example, in this case I’m a performer, but I use a bolero to teach about Mexico’s nation building as well as looking at the cosmopolitanism that brought around the rise of the bolero. So, realizing that the genre themselves are more than just genres that we play, but also realizing that there are people and there is a history behind it.

LN: How do you hope the newer generation upholds the traditions of the bolero? How do you hope they continue respecting and honoring the history?

MG: Oh, I love that question. It’s just a class genre that tells a perfect story and what I mean by that is there is a beginning, a middle, and an end. It’s never just a happy kind of music, it can be, but it’s also introspective. So, I’m not surprised that young people like it and I’m glad to see that, but I do hope that they take from it that there are different life experiences and points of view whether in love or in society. More than anything, I hope the bolero connects them to their family’s previous generation, currently bonds them in the present, and hopefully they impart to their children or the next generation, sharing that bolero. The bolero is meant to be shared. I hope the bolero is shared, not just among lovers, but also among generations and that we keep communicating our lives through this and hopefully they themselves continue to reinterpret and record without forgetting the past.

Boleros De Noche, the acclaimed Los Angeles-based musical series returns for its 2nd Annual tour to Chicago. Headlining the performance, A Night of Romance and Rhythm, will be Grammy® Award-winning Chicana musician Martha Gonzalez, accompanied by acclaimed Venezuelan pianist Marco Antonio Godoy, performing a selection of beloved bolero classics and audience favorites. Boleros De Noche takes place September 25th at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance. For tickets, call 312-334-7777 or visit harristheaterchicago.org.

Photo Credit: The Silverman Group