Word choice when talking about community-oriented campus organizations is important. Ithaca College is getting its first Latin — and not Latino — Ensemble.
The founders of this new music ensemble — juniors Miguel Lopez, Martina Brinkley Flores and Victor Chicas Caceros — said there is an important reason for calling it the IC Latin Ensemble and not using ‘Latino.’ The Latin Ensemble is exclusively for Latin music, but not exclusively for Latino students.
The Latin Ensemble is an all-gender-inclusive organization that encompasses Latino students, among other identities, but focuses on Latin music itself. Currently, the ensemble comprises around 15 students, and there is no audition required. While there are no performances scheduled yet, rehearsals are held every Wednesday from 7–8 p.m. and Saturday from 6-7 p.m. in Instrumental Rehearsal Room 4306. So far, the ensemble’s programming has included artists Frankie Ruiz, Willie Colón, Joe Arroyo and La Verdad.
Chicas Caceros, president of the Latin Ensemble, said the popularity of Latin jazz misrepresents the genre as a whole because there are so many branches of Latin music to uncover and appreciate. The ensemble has a mission to place emphasis on authentic representation of Latin music beyond its mainstream aspects, exploring additional styles like merengue, salsa, bachata, cumbia and more.
“Latin jazz has been done a lot,” Chicas Caceros said. “That isn’t what we’re doing; we want to do actual Latin music.”
Lopez and Chicas Caceros, both music education majors, grew up together in Long Island, New York. Lopez, vice president of the ensemble, said he was surrounded by predominantly Hispanic communities growing up, and the two agreed their upbringing is what really inspired them to create the first Latin ensemble on campus.
“[Growing up,] our teachers would program music for us, knowing that we would enjoy it,” Chicas Caceros said. “But there wasn’t a real dedicated Latin ensemble group.”
Brinkley Flores, the social media manager, said she plans to utilize Instagram and possibly TikTok to reach different communities on campus. She said she is excited to not only bring the Latino population together — given the college’s makeup as a predominantly white institution — but also to create a safe space for people of all backgrounds to have a taste of their culture.
“I am a part of a Latin dance ensemble at Cornell, Sabor, and I feel so at home and safe there because there are my people there,” Brinkley Flores said. “I think being able to bring that to Ithaca will be really beautiful.”
Chicas Caceros said he does not see Latin culture reflected in the curriculum and has seen many students interested in learning more about this genre of music.
“I feel like it’s our responsibility to be able to nurture and actually educate people on this genre and to portray it and not disrespect it in any way,” Chicas Caceros said. “So I think it comes better from people [who] have been surrounded with it in their life for so long, because it’s generational for us.”
Junior Jazmen Robinson, co-president of the IC Musicians of Color Association, said she is very excited that students will be able to showcase where they come from, their culture and love for music. IC MOCA collaborates with other BIPOC student organizations to support and promote people of color coming together to celebrate and showcase students’ passion for music.
“IC MOCA started as a safe space for students of color who were in [the Whalen Center for Music] to have their voices be heard while dealing with professors and old repertoire things that didn’t really represent them and their identities,” Robinson said. “We wanted a safe space to vent on those issues and promote change in Whalen as well within the curriculum.”
Some other student of color music groups on campus include New Voices a capella group, Students for Students Orchestra, the West African Drumming and Dance Ensemble and Black Artists United.
Will Porter, assistant professor in the Department of Music Performance, will serve as the faculty adviser for the ensemble. Porter is a trombone player and has a passion for global social development in music education. He said the Latin Ensemble will fill a gap that exists not only in the current ensembles offered, but also in how in-depth the curriculum can cover Latin music.
“[Latin music] is probably music that is explored to an extent in musicology classes, and certainly in the jazz ensembles,” Porter said. “I know they play a certain amount of Latin music, but we don’t have any ensemble that is dedicated solely just to exploring this music.”
As their adviser, Porter will assist with logistical and organizational efforts such as securing performance spaces in Whalen’s School of Music, and providing support in creative aspects like writing their own arrangements.
Lopez said finding rehearsal space in Whalen — between sharing with the many a capella groups and large ensembles like Students for Students Orchestra — will be one of the biggest challenges for the ensemble in its beginning stages.
Porter said the Latin Ensemble filling an untapped niche is a great opportunity that could hold further possibilities in the future.
“It seems like there’s a good appetite and demand for it from the students, so that’s exciting,” Porter said. “One never knows where these things might go. … If it proves to be very successful and in demand, then that might open the opportunity for us to say we should be offering this in the curriculum.”
Lopez said the ensemble hopes to collaborate with other music groups on campus and in the Ithaca community, such as Cornell’s Sabor, Students for Students Orchestra, or IC MOCA.
Sophomore Heather Cruz, the social media manager for IC MOCA, said she looks forward to possible collaboration opportunities with the Latin Ensemble. As a part of the Latinx community, she said she is excited to see the music she has grown up with be reflected in a student organization.
“In Hispanic and Latin culture, it is a way for us to bring each other together, but also to bring a lot of people from Whalen in and have more exposure to Latin music, because there are so many kinds of Latin Music,” Cruz said. “They are doing more modern Latin music, artists like Willie Colón and a lot of people in our community know those artists.”
Although the Latin Ensemble is only in its early stages of development, its creation is something Chicas Caceros, Brinkley Flores and Lopez said they have thought about for some time.
Chicas Caceros said he had a realization over the summer where he knew the they had to start the ensemble right away.
“In this point in time with everything happening [with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] they’re trying to make us hide our culture, and I think to combat that, we have to show our culture even more, express it unapologetically and make it a safe space for other people to be able to do that as well,” Chicas Caceros said. “Because, if not, I’m doing a disservice to the people that are here that want to see it.”
