Festival Cardinal: A Musical Cure For COVID Woes
THE CORONAVIRUS STRUCK GABRIELA URQUIZA AND CRIMPED HER BUSINESS. BUT IT HASN’T SHUT DOWN HER LOVE OF MUSIC FROM THROUGHOUT LATIN AMERICA. THIS WEEKEND’S FESTIVAL CARDINAL IS PART OF HER QUEST TO KEEP THAT MUSIC ALIVE
Gabriela Urquiza is on a crazy musical journey that she didn’t see coming.
From Oct. 23-35, she’ll be guiding us on a free and unprecedented online musical “tour” -- Festival Cardinal -- featuring 60 artists from the four cardinal points of the Americas.
The festival showcases a diverse mix of genres and acts, from emerging artists to established stars.
Urquiza says the online festival is a direct, unified response by a community shaken by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Pre-pandemic, there was significant buzz about 2020 in the Latin music business.
“Everybody thought that for the first time this year would be amazing… and then,” says Urquiza, “it’s like everything vanished.”
As the founder and director of the GlamRock Agency she’s been booking and managing bands and international tours since 1998, and has had her share of reinvention. When the U.S. dollar collapsed in her native Argentina she moved her company to Puerto Rico. There, she helped give rise to the alternative rock band Circo, to hip-hop superstars Calle 13, and singer-songwriter Draco Rosa, who’s written some of Ricky Martin’s biggest hits.
In 2012, she followed the Latin music market to its hub in Mexico City, where she was flourishing until the COVID-19 lockdowns and the subsequent financial hit brought her life to a standstill.
Covid-19 slammed her business, her body and her spirit
“In the beginning, I was very panicked with the pandemic,” Urquiza recalls. “I was traveling a lot. Then my husband got sick, and then I did too… and [we] lost our sense of smell.” After retreating for two months, she became depressed. She even considered another career. “You talk to a lot of people and they have thousands of ideas and you have zero... So, I had a month of highs and lows.”
To watch Festival Cardinal please visit Facebook/FestivalCardinal
SCHEDULE
Friday October 23 / Saturday, October 24 / Sunday, October 25
Friday: 7 pm Mexico/Peru/Colombia; 8 pm NY/Puerto Rico; 9 pm Argentina/ Sao Paulo; 5 pm Los Angeles
Saturday: 5 pm Mexico/ Peru/Colombia; 6 pm NY/Puerto Rico; 7pm Argentina/Sao Paulo; 3 pm Los Angeles
Sunday: 4 pm Mexico; 5 pm Peru/Colombia; 6 pm NY/Puerto Rico; 7 pm Argentina/Sao Paulo
As live videos and online concerts began popping up, Urquiza was inspired to create a small GlamRock Festival to give artists in her stable some exposure. It went so well, she thought, “why not do this with the whole continent? The four cardinal points!” So, she reached out to industry friends and colleagues, one by one.
The support was overwhelming, surpassing Urquiza’s initial, modest goal of 20 acts. Now it’s 60 acts, from 13 countries. She described it as “crazy, magical, and unifying.”
An industry faces the music
Urquiza says the music industry is due for a balancing act, especially in Latin America, where festivals center around big names. While she does work with big names, she also develops emerging talent. “What I love the most is discovering new artists… when you feel this chill in your skin and something moves inside you.”
Emerging talent, she insists, is vital to the industry.
“There has to be more slots for new artists in the festivals,” she said. “People sometimes don’t pay for festivals with 80% new talent, but that can change. We have to build new steps for the future... Festivals (can) create a name by the quality of music.”
Among the emerging musicians set for the Festival Cardinal are:
MarteOvenuS
“We feel very honored and happy to be part of this festival; to connect with so many artists,” said Ana Feliz, singer in the pop duo MarteOvenuS. “This is the way we communicate to the world – through music.”
The duo -- Feliz and Luis Payán-- met while working with legendary Dominican artist Juan Luis Guerra. They described their act as “two Dominicans making music for the heart.” In their time together, they’ve been nominated twice for best Pop-Rock group in the Domican Republic’s Soberanos awards.
Silvina Moreno
For alternative pop singer-songwriter Silvina Moreno, 2020 has been “crazy” and “strange” yet still a very creative time. She’s a rising star in Argentina who followed her dream to study music in the United States before returning home. After four albums and signing with the Sony label, she recently opened for Ed Sheeran before a crowd of 50,000 people. “I love being onstage and I miss it so much... Every hour spent rehearsing, writing music, planning, touring... hotels, planes. Everything makes sense when I get onstage.” Transferring that energy to an online performance during a pandemic fits with her philosophy: “Keep going and never let go of the dream.”
Monsieur Periné
Singer Catalina Garcia and instrumentalist Santiago Prieto Sarabia of the Colombian group Monsieur Periné were on the top of their game with the pandemic struck. “We were touring eight years in a row… We couldn’t stop one month,” says Sarabia. “We (do the) laundry and leave again.” Their fusion of jazz, swing, pop, bolero and Afro-Colombian rhythms earned them a Latin Grammy for Best New Artist in 2015 for the album “Caja de Musica,” as well as three more nominations for their 2018 album “Encanto Tropical”.
“There are a lot of risks that you have to take all the time to create music, to create connection to the people,” says Garcia. Even though the pandemic has allowed them to exhale, she thinks the main lesson of this year is “to break all the masks and imagery that you are building all the time about future and about success and about life and about being happy and about having things and blah-blah-blah-blah – and just breathe and connect your soul to somebody, to something, to nature, to YOU.”
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Marisa Arbona-Ruiz is a bilingual Emmy Award-winning producer and journalist. She’s a contributing co-host on NPR’s Alt.Latino podcast, a voice announcer and musician who can be found breaking into song and dance on random concert stages. Find her on Instagram: @marisa.arbona.ruiz; Twitter: @MarisaArbona; and Facebook: @ArbonaWorksMedia.