SU, Le Moyne team up for American music, Spanish poetry conference Sept. 27-29

The relationship between American music and Spanish poetry will be explored at a major conference at Syracuse University and Le Moyne College. The program, “Jazz and Blues Rhythms: The Influence of Contemporary North American Music on 20th- and 21st-Century Spanish Poetry,” runs Sept. 27-29 on both campuses. It is free and open to the public.

For more information, contact Kathryn Everly, associate professor of Spanish in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics (LLL), in Syracuse University’s College of Arts and Sciences, at keverly@syr.edu or 315-443-2042.

“The purpose of this innovative project is to expose students to the world of Spanish poetry from an interdisciplinary perspective,” says Everly, an expert in Spanish narrative and film, Catalan female writers and Spanish cultural studies. “This project will reveal the close relationship between music and the written word that has defined both genres since their origins.”

Co-organizer Josefa Álvarez, associate professor of foreign languages and literatures at Le Moyne, agrees, adding that attendees will witness widespread influences inside and outside the American borders of jazz and blues music.

“Our proposal is to combine theory and practice to communicate the theme,” she says. “This conference is the first of what we hope will become a major series.”

Invited guests include Spanish poets Francisco Díaz de Castro (University of Balearic Islands), Aurora Luque (University of Málaga), and José Antonio Mesa Toré, as well as Spanish jazz-fusion guitarist Gabriel Riesco.

The conference includes the following:

• a concert and poetry reading on Tuesday, Sept. 27, at 7:30 p.m. at Le Moyne’s Panasci Family Chapel (1419 Salt Springs Rd., Syracuse);
• a roundtable discussion on Wednesday, Sept. 28, at 2 p.m. in the Kilian Room (500) of SU’s Hall of Languages; and 
• visits by professional poets to “Approaches to Reading Texts” (SPA 301) and “Introduction to Latin American Literature” (SPA 322) at SU and to “Spanish-American Civilization” (SPN 312) and “Twentieth-Century Spanish Drama and Poetry” (SPN 423) at Le Moyne.

“Jazz and Blues Rhythms” is sponsored at SU by the Central New York Humanities Corridor, generously supported by an award from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; LLL; the Department of Art and Music Histories; the Lino Novas Calvo Fund; Centro de Estudios Hispanicos; the Program on Latin America and the Caribbean; and the Program for Cultural Cooperation Between Spain’s Ministry of Culture and U.S. Universities.

The program is sponsored at Le Moyne by the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, the Music Program and the Office of the Assistant Vice President for Campus Activities and Multicultural Programs.