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Published: 08 April 2018 08 April 2018

The Silver City Museum is excited to host a live music, history and culture presentation about some important (and catchy!) Latin music genres, with musician and folklorist Chuy Martinez. Martinez will speak and perform in the Silver City Museum Courtyard, 302 West Broadway Street on Thursday, April 26 at noon.

Chuy Martinez is a musician and folklorist who has performed all over New Mexico. The program he is sharing with us this April is about the rich, decades-long exchange musical ideas between the Americas: the ballad, from Spain and Mexico; the cumbia, of Caribbean African and Indian roots; and nueva cancion (new song), a music of social struggle influenced by U.S. labor and protest songs.

Martinez puts the songs and rhythms in historical context, but they also have personal context. Martinez learned to play guitar while working as a migrant farmworker in California, a job he started at age 12, fleeing an abusive foster home. He joined the United Farm Workers Union at 16, working rallies in many states as an organizer and musician. Today, outside of his musical life, Martinez lives in Albuquerque and works as Old Town manager/curator for Albuquerque's Cultural Services Department/Community Events. He is also well-known as the host of Lo Maduro de la Cultura, a popular public-access TV show on the arts.

This presentation is open to the public and you are invited to bring your brown bag lunch along. The presentation is free, though a $5 donation is suggested, to support further museum activities.

The Silver City Museum creates opportunities for residents and visitors to explore, understand, and celebrate the rich and diverse cultural heritage of southwestern New Mexico by collecting, preserving, researching, and interpreting the region's unique history. For more information, please contact the museum at (575) 538-5921, info@silvercitymuseum.org, or go to the museum's website: www.silvercitymuseum.org.