“Celia: The Queen” – Outdoor Film & Music Festival
Film: “Celia: The Queen”, Music: Gerardo Contino y Los Habaneros, Music: DJ Asho
Sunday, July 12, 2015, 7pm
St. Mary’s Park, Bronx – SummerStage
St Mary’s St (bet. St Ann’s Av and Jackson Ave)
Bronx
Celia the Queen, is a loving look at the amazing life and legacy of a woman whose voice symbolized the soul of a nation and captured the hearts of fans worldwide. Erupting onto the Cuban music scene as the lead singer for La Sonora Matancera, Celia Cruz broke down barriers of racism and sexism. With the powerful weapon of her voice and the warm tolerance of her heart, Celia soon became all things to all people. The film shows the diversity of the people whose lives she touched, from stars like Quincy Jones, Andy Garcia, and Wyclef Jean to ordinary people all over the world who loved not only her music but her incredible spirit.
Selected by NPR/WNYC as Manhattan’s best band of 2015, gritty, witty and streetwise, the Havana-born Gerardo Contino, “El Abogado de la Salsa,” is a Cuban singer and songwriter. This former lead singer of the Cuban mega-groupNG La Banda, Contino is a party onstage: he loves to improvise, to pull the audience into call & response, and to provoke fans into hip-shaking abandon. Since moving to New York City, Gerardo started his own band, “Gerardo Contino y Los Habaneros,” with Axel Tosca Laugart, Luisito Quintero, and John Benitez. They released their debut album, Somos Latinos, in 2013 to very high critical acclaim. He has toured all over the world and in his new hometown, NYC, he has performed in Brooklyn Academy of Music, Sounds of Brazil (SOBs), BB King Blues Club, Le Poisson Rouge, the Bronx Museum, Live at the Gantries, Roulette, Gonzalez y Gonzalez, Taj, and many others.
Ariel Fernandez-Diaz aka DJ ASHO is a Cuban cultural ambassador who has held notable performing and curatorial residencies at institutions such as the Bronx Museum of the Arts and at numerous hip clubs up and down the Eastern seaboard and New York City. A dream came true when he was invited to offer his DJ distinctive repertoire at a very special Central Park SummerStage event a few years back. Known from Miami to Oakland, in the DC area, he was the catalyst behind AfroCuba! which brought a rich mix of fans together on a weekly basis. In Cuba, he was among a generation of Black youth who identified with Hip Hop as a form of musical resistance. Previously, he’s worked as an engineer, producer, DJ, and author/columnist having established a leading magazine for youth and young adults focused on Black culture and identity. While he still considers himself a “Hip Hop head,” he’s deeply knowledgeable about the diverse music from his island nation. No musical set from DJ Asho is ever quite the same. Though, he does consistently combines amazing selections ranging from obscure and historical Yoruba tracks to the greatest hits from Timba and Son with nods to Fela and Boricua heavy weights such as Hector LaVoe and the Fania era. A musical ride with DJ Asho is pure alchemy; just the right dose of heady musicology and straight up fun to feed the mind and heal the soul