Sept. 23, 2015

Contact Jesús Jambrina at 608-796-3493 or jejambrina@viterbo.edu

CORE ENSEMBLE TO PERFORM TRES VIDAS AT VITERBO UNIVERSITY OCT. 5

LA CROSSE, Wis. – Core Ensemble will perform the chamber music theatre work Tres Vidas at 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 5 in the Viterbo University Fine Arts Center Recital Hall. This event is free and open to the public.

Chamber Music Theatre is a unique performance format developed by the Core Ensemble featuring a marriage of theatrical narrative to chamber music performance. Rosa Rodríguez portrays multiple characters while interacting with the onstage musical trio of cello, piano, and percussion.

Tres Vidas celebrates the life, times, and work of three significant Latin and South American Women, painter Frida Kahlo of Mexico, peasant activist Rufina Amaya of El Salvador, and poet Alfonsina Storni of Argentina. With storylines including Frida Kahlo’s dramatic and passionate relationship with painter Diego Rivera, Rufina Amaya’s astounding singular survival of the massacre at El Mozote, and Alfonsina Storni’s lifelong challenges as Argentina’s first great feminist poet, Tres Vidas presents dramatic situations timeless in their emotional appeal and connection to audiences across all gender and ethnic spectrums.

With a script written by Chilean poet/writer Marjorie Agosin, Tres Vidas offers powerful portrayals of each woman and includes the singing of traditional Mexican folk songs as well as Argentinean popular and tango songs made famous by Mercedes Sosa and Carlos Gardel. Additional music by Astor Piazzolla, Orlando Garcia, Pablo Ortiz, Alice Gomez, Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, Michael DeMurga and Osvaldo Golijov round out the musical score.

Since 1993, the Core Ensemble has toured nationally to every region of the United States and internationally to England, Russia, the Ukraine, Australia and the British Virgin Islands. The Ensemble was the recipient of the 2000 Eugene McDermott Award for Excellence in the Arts awarded by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has received support from the State of Florida Department of Cultural Affairs, New England Foundation for the Arts, Palm Beach County Cultural Council, the Aaron Copland Fund for Music and the Virgil Thomson Foundation.

This performance is made possible thanks to a grant by Viterbo University and the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.