Buena Vista Social Club director/musician speaks at Dartmouth March 3 as part of popular culture series

Posted 02/29/00

Juan de Marcos González, musical director of the Afro-Cuban All Stars and the Grammy Award-winning Buena Vista Social Club, will share his thoughts on the burgeoning Latin music scene in a 5 p.m. lecture Friday, March 3, in the Hopkins Center's Loew Auditorium at Dartmouth College. His talk will be preceded by a viewing of the Academy Award-nominated documentary Buena Vista Social Club. Both events are free and open to the public.

The appearance by González is the second installment in a lecture series at Dartmouth College called "Making Movies, Making Music." In February, musician and singer Sheryl Crow was the first performer in the series, which is sponsored by the Montgomery Endowment.

González is recognized as a central figure in the renewed popularity of Cuban music today. Besides organizing and leading the Buena Vista Social Club and the Afro-Cuban All Stars, he also is an arranger, producer and performer who has been musical director for albums by Grammy Award nominee Ibrahim Ferrer and famed pianist Rubén González.

Born and raised in Havana, González formed his first professional band, Sierra Maestra, in the 1970s while still in college. The group went on to achieve great success in Cuba, recording fourteen albums and touring Africa and Europe.

After developing a relationship with the London-based record label World Circuit in 1994, González began working on a dream of pulling together an intergenerational band combining the legendary Cuban musicians of the 1940s and 1950s with younger musicians.

"I wanted to mix the generations so there is the experience of the older guys and the energy of the younger players," said González. The result was the Afro-Cuban All Stars, which earned a Grammy nomination in 1998.

González recruited several members of the Afro-Cuban All Stars to participate in the Buena Vista Social Club, an Afro-Caribbean influenced Latin jazz ensemble. The group won a Grammy Award in 1998 and was the subject of an Academy Award-nominated documentary by Wim Wender in 1999.

The Montgomery Endowment brings to Dartmouth outstanding figures not only from the academic world but from non-academic spheres as well. It was established in 1977 by the late Chicago attorney Kenneth F. Montgomery '25 and his wife, Harle, to "provide for the advancement of the academic realm of the college. . . making possible new dimensions for, as well as extraordinary enrichments to, the educational experience" at Dartmouth.

Other upcoming Montgomery Endowment speakers include the husband-and-wife team of composer Steve Reich and video artist Beryl Korot in early April and Brazilian theater director, theoretician and community activist Augusto Boal, creator of "The Theatre of the Oppressed," in early May.

NOTE TO REPORTERS AND EDITORS: There are limited opportunities for personal interviews with Gonzalez during his visit to Dartmouth. A black-and-white promotional photo of González is available for digital transmission.