Dreamers

"These days, when even the term dreamers is disputed territory, celebrating beauty is a political act. That is the beating heart of Dreamers, the collaboration between New York-based Mexican singer Magos Herrera and the string quartet Brooklyn Rider. The recording includes gems of the Ibero-American songbook such as Volver a los 17, (To Be 17 Again); Coraçao Vagabundo, (Vagabond Heart); and Balderrama, as well as pieces written to texts by Octavio Paz, Rubén Darío, and Federico García Lorca all reimagined by a superb group of arrangers including Jaques Morelenbaum, Gonzalo Grau, Diego Schissi, Guillermo Klein and Brooklyn Rider s own Colin Jacobsen. The connecting thread is that the poets and songwriters featured on Dreamers came from places that have endured brutal state violence. Consider Violeta Parra, from Chile; Joao Gilberto, Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, from Brazil; Gustavo Cuchi Leguizamón, from Argentina and García Lorca, Spain. Poet, essayist and Nobel Prize winner Paz even resigned as Mexico s ambassador to India in 1968 to protest his government s violent repression of student demonstrations. "