Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap.
A solid rhythm beat from stage right at the Joe Mathias Elementary School cafeteria Thursday afternoon.
Gary Nunez waved his arms at the other side of the cafeteria, orchestrating a plena rhythm in the children’s claps: One beat-beat one.
“One side does the beat, the other side answers,” Nunez said.
At A Glance
Plena Music
Plena music developed in Puerto Rico and has an Afro-Carribean heritage. The music relies on hand drums for percussion and vocal harmony. Plena Libre incorporates plena, bomba, jazz, merengue, cumbia and mambo into their music.
Source: Staff Report
Nunez, the founder and director of the group Plena Libre, walked nearly 300 third- through fifth-grade students through the rhythms and history of plena-style music. Plena Libre, a four-time Grammy nominee, performed at the Walton Arts Center Thursday night.
“This is the youngest music original to Puerto Rico,” Nunez told his audience.
Plena is 100 years old and was created by farm workers, he said. Hand drums, or panderos, allowed them to take their music with them. Three sizes of hand drums tuned low to high, create plena music. The sequidor sets the tempo, like the group on stage right, he explained. The punteador answers the first drum, like the group on stage left. The requinto improvises the rhythm, Nunez said.
“This is the one that does the freedom part,” he said.
The students had an idea of what the music would sound like before the Plena Libra began to play, said Molly Klintworth, music educator at Mathias. Hearing the musicians in person brought the sound to life. World music is part of the curriculum.
Klintworth had her students research Plena Libre for weeks, and was pleased to hear Nunez reference culture and history with Thursday’s performance. Many of the students have Hispanic heritage, and to have a guest who speaks Spanish touched a chord.
“Their hearts connected to it instantly,” Klintworth said. “It was a perfect fit for the school.”
Connor Ferguson, a fifth-grader, said the music was so-so, but his favorite part was the dance at the end as Nunez led children in a long curling conga line around the room.
Parent Jose Arias came to hear the music. The group was good, he said, and the music was familiar. He had heard similar style music in California.
There are two goals for each school performance, Nunez said: that children have fun, but also open their eyes to different cultures.
“We hope to give them a healthy outlook on the richness of the cultures of the world,” he said.