Levitt’s Free Summer Series
Presented by Indie 102.3
Xfinity’s Summer Concert Series
Sunday, August 14th, 2022
All Ages | Rain or Shine
GA Doors Open: 4:00 PM | Show Start: 5:00 PM
Limited Molly’s Spirits VIP Lounge Tickets On-Sale April 22nd at 10am
Free RSVP Now Open
Free Show and Music Education Fair in partnership with AMEE
The Alliance for Music Education Equity (AMEE) is the backbone organization of a collective impact effort of music organizations that are passionate about equity, diversity, and inclusivity, and are committed to cooperatively making systemic change in music education across Denver. AMEE offers training, workshops, networking and special events for its members to work towards greater equity and access to music education and music programs in Denver. We imagine a cooperative, solutions-oriented network that is adaptive and responsive to the changing needs of our community so that the power of music is unleashed in new and creative ways. The annual AMEE Festival and Resource Fair will be a way for community members to interact with different music organizations and the programs available to them while enjoying great bands, booths and food. Learn more at allianceformusicedequity.org.
AMEE Members: Denver Young Artist Orchestra, Augustana Arts, Swallow Hill Music, the Newman Center for the Performing Arts, El Sistema Colorado, Youth on Record, the Colorado Symphony, Inside the Orchestra, Little Kids Rock, Radical Arts Academy of Denver, VOCO Vocal Coalition, Colorado Children’s Chorale, A Child's Song, Metropolitan State University of Denver, the Playground Ensemble, the Lamont Summer Academy, Colorado Youth Mariachi Program and Deeply Rooted Music School.
Y La Bamba
Y La Bamba has been many things, but at the heart of it is singer-songwriter Luz Elena Mendoza’s inquisitive sense of self. Their fifth record, Mujeres, carries on the Portland-based band’s affinity for spiritual contemplation, but goes a step further in telling a story with a full emotional spectrum. Coming off Ojos Del Sol, one of NPR’s Top 50 Albums of 2016, Mujeres exhibits the scope of Mendoza’s artistic voice like never before. “Soy como soy,” Mendoza says, and that declaration is the bold— even political— statement that positions Mujeres to be Y La Bamba’s most unbridled offering yet.
The record exists in the post-2016 landscape of a national identity crisis, and Mendoza explores what it means to be a Mexican American woman by leading us through places we are afraid to go. Mujeres ventures in to the discomfort of the stories we tell ourselves. Those of our past, our futures. We all have these stories somewhere inside of us, but with Y La Bamba, Mendoza forges new narratives from old stories of heritage and family, tracing history while forging modern chicana feminism.
“Music is an extension of everything I have inside. It’s how I emote,” Mendoza says. The raw honesty of Mujeres is in fact the raw honesty of Mendoza. Armed with the emotionality of traditional música mexicana and the storytelling of American folk, Y La Bamba’s artistry is not just their musical ability but Mendoza’s search for unadulterated truth. It is in an ancestral, spiritual journey in which Mendoza comes to terms with the influence and limitations of her upbringing. Mendoza’s experience of childhood summers in the San Joaquin Valley listening to mariachi, of being raised strict Catholic by immigrant parents, of being a woman having to prove herself to the boys, paints strokes of both melancholy and healing on the tracks. “From the way that my family struggles, to the way they shoot the shit… it’s so different from whiteness,” Mendoza says. “It’s a different dimension.”
Y La Bamba exists in the dimension of the Mexican American imagination: somewhere cynical and optimistic at the same time. While there is a celebration of the Mexican creativity that has informed Mendoza’s life, there is a darker side to reconcile with. Where do mujeres fit in to the American story? What are the sins for which we are all guilty? How do different generations interact with the world? How can a culture become visible without tokenization? It is no surprise that in Mujeres, Y La Bamba’s first record with Mendoza at the helm of production, Mendoza contemplates these questions to tell her story. But it is not just Mendoza’s story. Challenging a narrative and dealing with the emotionality of that effort— that is everyone’s story.
Mujeres was recorded by Luz Elena Mendoza and Ryan Oxford at Color Therapy Studios and Besitos Fritos Studios in Portland, Oregon. Mixed by Jeff Bond, with Grace Bugbee on bass, John Niekrasz on drums, Margaret Wher Gibson on keys, and Ed Rodriguez and Ryan Oxford on electric guitar.
Kayla Marque
Kayla Marque is a singer songwriter that was born and raised in Denver, Colorado. In 2020 Marque released Brain Chemistry, a transcendent double album that dives deep into themes of self love, trauma and mental health all through the concept of examining the Right Brain and Left Brain. In 2021, Kayla Marque’s side project “The Grand Alliance” with Sur Ellz (Khalil Arcady) and Crl Crrll (Carl Carrell) released its funky, genre bending self-titled debut The Grand Alliance. As the program manager at Diversify the Stage, Kayla Marque is looking to the future. Her next solo project promises to continue in a more playful energy, exploring themes of beauty, pleasure and fantasy, while still grounded by the raw honesty that ties all her music together.