Penya
A danceable, genre-defying quartet, blending Latin American folklore, electronica and afrofunk - embodying the energised sound of a cosmopolitan UK. Credited by Gilles Peterson for its "Potent vibe and spirit" the band was one of only UK Latin bands to profile on his programme.
Lilli and Jim: The beginning of 2020 was a very exciting time for Penya. We recorded our second album with the help of PRS Momentum Funding, and got to go to Real World studios for three days, which was just an incredible experience! Our sound was developing in very interesting ways and we were looking forward to 2020 summer festivals.
With Lockdown came the cancellations, and this affected us financially. It forced us to think outside of the box, and luckily, we managed to find a way of making music together, sometimes remotely. This has actually turned out to be quite an interesting time for us, creatively speaking!
Playing at Fuerza London was the first time we played together since March, and it felt just incredible to be back on stage, especially with a great team of organizers and technical people to work with.
The pressure I had carried with for the past six months melted away for that moment - it was like coming home! It also felt wonderful to be a part of a project like this, as a lot of us musicians have felt like our work hasn't really been seen as worthy of support from the government. It was like a small glimmer of hope and a vision of things to come.
Grupo Lokito
Led by one of the most respected band leaders in Latin music (LUKAS musician of the year 2018 Sara McGuinness) Grupo Lokito fuse contemporary Congolese and Cuban music to create a modern-day cocktail of two of the world’s great music styles. Its energetic live performances have been wowing audiences since 2006 with their blistering grooves and outlandish dance moves, earning them the 2017 LUKAS Tropical Act Award.
Sara: Highlights of 2019 were the African Music Festival at Rich Mix, Shambala Festival, South Bank. Before lockdown Grupo Lokito were playing regular gigs on the UK circuit. We also had quite a few bookings for summer Festivals. We were also working on new material for the band with a plan to release on vinyl.
Lockdown had a huge and disastrous impact on Grupo Lokito. All of the band's work was cancelled. Many of the musicians are first generation immigrants and have little or no family support; live music is their only source of income. Some of the musicians, notably the Congolese members, were victims of the failed UK asylum system, having waited years for resolution of their cases with no rights to housing or medical services. Having recently been granted right to remain, they still remained ineligible for any Universal Credit and when lockdown hit, were left destitute. Other musicians managed to get small amounts of aid from Help Musicians UK. The band managed to get a grant from the Arts Council to write and record music in lockdown and, while not providing a living wage, this has helped us keep creative and working on new music.
Getting together to play for Fuerza London was amazing. Music is our lifeblood and there has been a gaping hole in our lives over the past few months. It was amazing to meet and play together. Musicians who work closely together are like a family and we have all missed everything about making music together.
Classico Latino
UK-based Classical-Latin sextet Classico Latino explore Cuba’s myriad of musical styles with their classical twist. Its unique and interesting fusion of Latin and classical, and beautiful musicality, reaches new Latin music fans through classical sounds.
Angela: 2019 was a very special year for us; our latest album Havana Classic was runner-up Album of the Year in the LUKAS Awards and, in album launch week, we recorded a video with ClassicFM, played live on In Tune on BBC R3, played to a full house in a concert in Cambridge and performed at the Canterbury Festival. We also had our debut at King's Place, London as guests of Omar Puente's concert at the EFG London Jazz Festival.
We had high hopes for 2020, then COVID struck. Our last live performance before lockdown was on 29th February at the Royal Concert Hall in Nottingham. Since then, all our concerts have either been cancelled or postponed and the first tentative booking is not till March 2021. It was devastating to see this happen, not to mention the lack of income. We managed to stay in touch with our friends and supporters via livestreaming, but it's not the same as playing together as a group for an audience.
Words can't express how happy we were to come together to play again after six long months! We were selected to play at the showcases for the London Latin Music Conference, so recording for Fuerza London was the second time we got together as a group since lockdown. But this time round, the amazing Cuban Jazz violinist Omar Puente joined us as our guest soloist so it was a very special recording. As musicians, we live to perform and we can't wait for the day when we have the opportunity to play to a live audience again!
Rene Alvarez
This Cuban born musical director, composer, arranger, trombonist, pianist and vocalist of Europe’s most successful touring Salsa artists. His band, The Cuban Combination, won the LUKAS Tropical Act in 2018 and headlined at La Clave Fest 2019 in Finsbury Park, bringing the party to 10,000 Londoners.
Rene: I grew up in Santiago de Cuba. I loved sports and was the national junior swimming breast stroke champion. I never imagined being a musician, even though I came from a musical family. But I remember distinctly Carnaval in Santiago in July 1993 and everything changed. I started trombone and singing and graduated from the Conservatory in Santiago de Cuba. When I was 17 I took part in six international choral festivals alongside national choirs from Sweden the US, Canada and Denmark. From 2001 to 2007 I was the lead trombonist in Sur Caribe, one of the most famous groups in Cuba at the time. And then decided to come to Europe and never looked back.
In my years in Europe I’ve recorded 3 successful albums ‘Camina como yo’, ‘Ya eres Grande’ and ‘Abriendo los Caminos’ and have toured non-stop. Before lockdown we were preparing a new album and were touring around Europe. 2020 was full of projects and bookings for live gigs and festivals and suddenly it all stopped.
Coming together again to play at Fuerza London was an experience I can’t describe, we’d never been so long without playing together before so it was super special. I wrote a song under lockdown call 'Se Nos Fueron' 'They left us', which I'll be performing for the first time at Fuerza London
Alvorada
Uniting top musicians from London and Brazil, whose diverse backgrounds include jazz, classical and Brazilian music, Alvorada are the UK’s leading performers of choro, a rich and uplifting style of instrumental music from Rio de Janeiro. They are winners of LUKAS Brazilian Act of the Year 2019.
Rachel: Alvorada was going from strength to strength before the lockdown. In Spring 2019, we launched our debut album ‘First Light’, which received really great reviews (5* Songlines), with sold-out album launches in both Pizza Express (London) and Paris International Choro Festival. We had won two prizes from the LUKAS and Focus Brasil awards. We performed in venues all over the UK for our album launch tour, and we played a sold-out show at the London Jazz Festival in November 2019 featuring pianist John Turville.
There were many exciting plans underway before we were hit by the pandemic. We were working towards a show in April 2020 with choro legend Luciana Rabello, who was coming from Brazil to tour Europe. We were starting to plan for the very first London Choro Festival, for which we would invite choro bands from Brazil and Europe to showcase their work, and run workshops. We were in discussion with Kings College London about forming a partnership for the festival, and were discussing possible funding options. We were also looking to record our second album in Summer 2020.
Lockdown put a stop to all this. It was impossible to meet as a band due to lockdown restrictions, and there was absolutely no point in planning for shows or festivals in the future since we had no idea if this would be possible. We need to rehearse to make music together, and this simply wasn't possible online. We all took a few months to work on individual projects, practice our instruments, learn new instruments, compose and procrastinate.
During lockdown, many musicians used social media as an alternative to live performance, but social media does not pay the bills. Income from live performance was zero, so we were all trying to make ends meet through online teaching, creating new projects such as Brazilian flute club and Body Percussion.
It was magical to be able to musically reconnect as a band, we managed to perform two other shows with small audiences, as well as two filmed showcase performances at Rich Mix for Fuerza London and it has been incredible to be playing again for Fuerza London. These are tough times for everyone, we are constantly shifting and rearranging plans in accordance to the new laws, and we are fighting to keep performing as long as it is safe to do so - music is our sanity!
De Fuego
Starting out as London buskers, this energetic Spanish-Latin instrumental flamenco guitar duo now performs in major festivals and won The LUKAS Folk Act 2019. Acclaimed Spanish guitarist and composer Tony Calvo his exciting, lightning fast and melodic guitar playing alongside Edina Balczo’s percussive and rhythmic guitar style - a perfect match for the high quality, energetic and passionate sound that people have come to know.
In 2019 we won the LUKAS for Best Folk/Jazz act and performed at the ceremony, as well as around 70 other gigs. We were signing record deal with a prestigious international label and played at the launch party for Henley Festival as special guests and for a famous author for her new book launch.
When lockdown came, we lost loads in bookings/events but we have other streams of income (through music) and have been focusing on writing new material for the upcoming full-length album. During lockdown we did two online ticketed shows and also featured in the Make Music UK festival in their prime national coverage slot.
Coming back to play after so long was nerve-racking. We hadn’t played in a while and we really felt honoured to be invited by Fuerza London and wanted you to produce the best footage possible. It felt high pressure but the crew was amazing.
Photos by Cindel Oranday. Set design by Tony Hornecker and Gisella Stapleton.
All bands performed as part of Fuerza London: teh Movie whoch you can see here below:
Want more music? You can see extra music from the artists below...
