Latin American Songbook – Ensemble Class

Mondays 6pm-8pm | 13 -week session |  Cost TBA

Instructor: Tregar Otten| Contact the instructor at tregaro@danzon.com for more information and to register!

Welcome to the world of Latin American music and culture!

This class offers a great variety of songs from the different countries in South and Central America including Cuba, Brazil, and more with all of their colors, different musical styles, rhythms and beautiful melodies.

The vocalists and musicians explore and perform in a recital a group of songs with interesting arrangements carefully selected by the teacher. The repertoire consists of a great variety of styles: Cuban charanga and son, Brazilian bossa nova & samba, as well as some salsa!

Vocalists interpret songs in Spanish and or Portuguese individually and as a group. Some knowledge of Spanish is helpful.

This ensemble class includes student musicians. We are always in need of musicians interested in taking this fascinating class. Especially piano, guitar, bass, drums, percussion and horn players.

The emphasis for this class, but not exclusively is – HAVE FUN WITH THE CLAVE AND AFRO CUBAN MUSIC – singers and musicians will be able to dig deeper into the roots of Afro Cuban music as well as get a taste of AFRICAN INFLUENCES in the music of other Latin American countries.

About the instructor Tregar Otton:

Tregar Otton (Violin, Composer, Arranger, educator), born in the Marshall Islands and raised in Corpus Christi, Texas and California. Otton began his classical music training at the age of four. He has been a part of the Bay Area Latin music scene since 1990, working primarily with Orq. La Moderna Tradición (Cuban), Los Cenzontles (Mexican), and the Potaje (Flamenco). While living in New York in the 90’s, he played as a regular member of Virgilo Martí y sus Majaderos with Cuban legends Chocolate Armenteros and Patato Valdez. He also worked closely with Juan Carlos Formell, and with the celebrated New York Charanga groups Orquesta Broadway and La Típica Novel.

Tregar founded Orquesta La Moderna Tradición with Roberto Borrell in 1995. Orq. la Moderna Tradición is a Cuban Charanga orquesta dedicated to playing popular Cuban music that incorporates violins and woodwinds (Danzón, Cha Cha Cha, Son Montuno, and more modern genres). The group has toured extensively in the United States and internationally.

Tregar has been on the faculty of the Community Music Center of San Francisco for over 15 years, teaching both individual and group classes to youth and adults. He teaches a performance oriented class in Cuban Charanga at the Center.

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