The Miami Sound: A Hispanic Musical Mark on American Pop

A talk and public discussion by Dr. Raúl Murciano
Friday, November 7th at 8:00 p.m. in the Museum Space Gallery

Over the last 100 years, Hispanic and North American music have had important influences on each other, and together have helped shape what we now generically refer to as “pop music.” Beginning with examples from the early 20^th century, Dr. Murciano will trace different stylistic lineages and follow their intersecting paths to the resultant hybrid and often surprising music forms that ultimately ensued. Take a fascinating musical excursion and learn the origins of the Contradanza, danza, danzón, cha-cha-cha, mambo, and rumba, and how these Cuban rhythms have made their indelible mark on our own music here in the USA.

Following the lecture, Dr. Murciano will offer a short performance demonstrating how "American" songs can be "transformed" (stylistically) into "Latin" sounds, and vice-versa.



About Dr. Murciano

Raúl Murciano, Jr. is a Miami-born composer/pianist, and currently serves as the Media Writing and Production program director at the Frost School of Music. An award-winning writer and producer of music for television and film, Murciano’s earliest successes came as a founding member and performer with Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine, serving as keyboardist and musical director for the group for eight years. Murciano’s accumulated experience in the recording studio and on the concert stage has led to many engagements as guest conductor and musical director for an impressive list of artists and musical events around the world, as well as many “behind-the-scene” musical productions for radio, television, and film. He served as radio host of WTMI’s Music of the Americas program, and continues to promote and extol the rich diversity of Cuban music through course offerings at the University of Miami.


For more information about the MiaSci FYI Lecture Series Click Here