Around the World in 80 Drums with Antonio Gomez - SoundWave Festival

In partnership with Early Music Seattle, BIMA is excited to showcase percussionist and educator Antonio Gomez, who will introduce and perform using percussion instruments from the ancient Mediterranean, North Africa, and Latin America. He’ll recount stories of migration, trade, and conquest that distributed the instruments and musical styles across the Western hemisphere.

Antionio is a Chicano-Italian son of the American West who has studied across Latin America and in Morocco, Spain, and Italy. He designs arts education programs and curricula as the Director of Community Engagement & Extended Learning at Tacoma Arts Live, and has produced performing arts and curricular content for universities and PBS. He currently serves as an Associate Folklorist for the Washington Center for Cultural Traditions and is on the advisory board of Early Music Seattle.

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Meet The Artist

Born in South Texas to a Chicano activist and an Italian American VISTA volunteer, Tony moved often growing up. Music and language became constant companions in decoding ever-changing cultural ecologies between South Texas, the Bay Area, and Tucson. This trajectory formed his calling to develop cultural dialogue and empathy. Tony specializes in not belonging anywhere but making friends everywhere. Mestizaje – a mixed identity formed at the intersection of cultures – shapes his work as a musician, curator, educator, and producer. Having studied on four continents, he plays Afro-Latin, Mediterranean, and Arabic percussion. Previously a K12 teacher, he has served as an educator and curriculum writer for public television and is now the Education Manager at Tacoma Arts Live. Being a working musician is indivisible from being an educator, an arts administrator, and a parent. The same heart that draws him to teach compels him to speak through the drum.

Antonio M. Gómez received a 2018 James W. Ray Venture Project Award for Raíz y Rama (Root and Branch), an effort to disrupt stereotypical notions of Mexican identity by exploring the complexity and diversity of Mexican musical traditions. The project centers on Trío Guadalevín and occurs in two parts: 1) An “encuentro” – encounter – with scholars and folklorists in Mexico City, including learning sessions and shared performances 2) A 5-day tour to provide bilingual performances in community venues and schools in Yakima, the Tri-Cities, Walla Walla, and Wenatchee. Mexico’s musical traditions are historic legacies: the reinvention of Indigenous music in Oaxaca; West African resilience in the son jarocho of Veracruz, Baroque forms realized in Nahuatl voices, medieval poetry developed in Spanish, descending from Arabic poetic traditions of Muslim Spain. The project spotlights this rich heritage even as it makes it widely accessible to all-age audiences across the state.

Thanks to our friends at Artist Trust for this biography of Tony.

https://artisttrust.org/artists/antonio-gomez/

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Event partners:

Early Music Seattle

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, 550 Winslow Way East, Bainbridge Island, United States