Top American performers work with Bahraini musicians

Malja Art Space, in collaboration with the US Embassy, has hosted a workshop featuring American band Gina Chavez Trio, entitled ‘Writing the Universal Language of Music’

The workshop was an introduction into the art of song-writing in two sections:  rhythm/movement and melody/rhyme. 

Members of the Malja youth group and young musicians attended the workshop and interacted with the three musicians:  Gina Chavez on the guitar, Michael Romero on the trumpet and Samuel Foster on the drums.

 In collaboration with the Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities and the Bahrain Fort Site Museum, the Embassy of the United States

also presented a musical performance by the Gina Chavez Trio at the Bahrain Fort Site Museum yesterday evening.

US Embassy Chargé d’Affaires Timothy Pounds presented the Gina Chavez Trio, who played a number of songs from Gina’s latest chart-topping release ‘Up.Rooted’, as well as the song Siete-D, which was the 2014 John Lennon song-writing contest grand prize winner.  The Gina Chavez Trio specialises in a Latin/folk musical style that represents America’s cultural diversity.   

‘Up.Rooted’ recently topped the iTunes and Amazon Latin charts in the United States. It was produced by Michael Ramos, best known for his work with Patty Griffin and John Mellencamp. The album spans 11 diverse pan-Latin songs featuring Adrian Quesada, the Tosca String Quartet, the Grupo Fantasma horn section, David Pulkingham and Glenn Fukunaga, to name a few of the Austin all-star players.

Chavez has received national recognition from NPR’s “All Songs Considered” and “Alt.Latino” for her debut SXSW performance (2012) as one of the new Latin artists to watch, and the Austin American-Statesman calls her “a true Austin music treasure — angelic vocals and a devilish treat on guitar.” 

The accolades don’t end there as she won Austin Music Awards for two years running, including three Austin Music Awards in 2013-2014 for ‘Best Female Vocals, Best Latin Traditional, and Best Latin Rock’, while Southern Living Magazine named her one of 11 “southern iconic women who have left a beautiful footprint across the South,” for her volunteer work in El Salvador.

“This album is a rhythmic exploration of who I am,” says Chavez. “A sonic garden of stories from an ethically mixed woman on a journey to uncover her lost Latin roots.” 

Chavez, whose parents are of Mexican and Swiss-German descent, was raised on Lyle Lovett, Little Richard and Michael Jackson. 

Her lifelong musical journey was inspired at Austin’s famed Continental Club and led to a semester in Buenos Aires, Argentina, all the way to community work in El Salvador in one of the roughest neighbourhoods.