Mateo Cano & Maria Puente Flores

Maria

Born and raised in Mexico City. Music and poetry have been the vessels through which she undertakes journeys. In weaving storytelling into music, she holds a dialogue with people that have already seen, experienced, and spoken about the ideas she is now grappling with: imperial capitalism, land plundering, violence, confinement, reciprocity, freedom, and love. She is interested in integrating herself into the chorus of musicians and poets that have held conversations about the experience of inhabiting this earth. Perhaps that is the nature of art: not the individual creating a tabula rasa but a fluttering of echoes from the collective memory. She is fascinated by the power of storytelling not only through words but also through sounds. She wants to continue using and promoting both as technologies of spiritual nourishment and tools for radical collective expression. Folk music, specifically Son Jarocho, has allowed her to find community and feel rooted in this new territory.

 

Mateo

Cano is a student of the Son Jarocho, Conchero, and the oral traditions of México, as well as an undergraduate pursuing Ethnomusicology and computer science. Being born in Brooklyn NY and migrating to Veracruz Mexico at a very young age allowed Mateo to be in close contact with many traditions that would later become an intimate part of his career as a young educator in Miami FL. Working as executive director in a community center in Miami FL, Mateo began to develop as a music and dance performer, as well as a grade school musical instructor. As a bilingual Mexican-American storyteller and as a member of the Son Jarocho community Mateo has participated in different projects such as Ameyal Mexican Cultural Organization, the YMCA of south Florida, Ingenio Teatro, City Lore, Mexico beyond Mariachi, Pulso de Barro, the Kingston Son Jarocho Collective, etc.