Upcoming/Ongoing Activities
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The African heritage in Puerto Rico: Seminars and virtual conferences in March
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Presentation and distribution of a new method of Jazz theory for the cuatroPuerto Rican
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Establishment of a commission to commemorate the sesquicentennial of the abolition of slavery in Puerto Rico
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Project Rescued from Oblivion: recreating missing Caribbean musical instruments.
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Establishment of an online store of the Center's publications
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Establishment of a manual workshop in May for the assembly of a Puerto Rican tiple at the Center
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Preparation of an electronic book of essays on different aspects of the music and musical instruments of Puerto Rico
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Diffusion of our new video documentary of the history of the Puerto Rican tiple
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Diffusion of our new documentary: a video-manual on the construction of a Puerto Rican tiple instrument
December 1, 2023 to present
Casa Paoli opens a traveling exhibition of 19th-century Puerto Rican stringed instruments
On the first day of December, the Paoli House of the Puerto Rico Folklore Research Center, Inc. inaugurated the first phase of a series of events related to the rolling exhibition of pilgrim musical instruments of Puerto Rico: Rescate del olvido. The first station or stop began at the library of the Ponce Art Museum. The exhibition includes the exhibition of several replicas - cuatros, tiples dolientes, tiples requintos and mandonuas - of the traditional musical instruments of our country that in 1888 were taken from Puerto Rico to Germany and in 1898 to Washington.
The activity was attended by a large group of students from the Ponce School of Fine Arts, the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music, artists and the general public. Casa Paoli also invited the renowned Puerto Rican luthier based in Massachusetts, William R. Cumpiano, to give a lecture on the instruments. This innovative initiative will tour the country's libraries, continuing in February at the UPR/Ponce and at the PR Conservatory of Music in San Juan.
For more details of the exhibition and event click here:
March 4, 2022 to present
Celebration of the Sesquicentennial of the abolition
of slavery in Puerto Rico (1873-1823)
The Casa Paoli of the Center for Folkloric Research of Puerto Rico, Inc. brought together a group of artists, musicians, humanists, and scholars in a Casa Paoli Commemorative Commission for the Sesquicentennial of the Abolition of Slavery in Puerto Rico.
The country needs, today more than ever, to know and recognize the great contributions of Africans who are forced to reach our Playas joined the living forces of our country and by dint of their sweat and blood, they offered their lives to our people. People of African descent continue to contribute to the material and spiritual development of Puerto Rico.
We are sure that in March 2022 and next year, the entire country will commemorate its 150th anniversary of the abolition of slavery with pride and dignity. The activities of the Commission began with three talks, sponsored by the Puerto Rican Foundation for the Humanities, the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture, the Flamboyán Fund for the Arts, and the Society of Friends of the Center-Casa Paoli, on the historical contribution of Afro-descendants , in Puerto Rico and in the so-called diaspora, by three important humanists
Since its foundation, the Center has been dedicated to researching, enriching, and disseminating Puerto Rican cultural values. The number of events and editions carried out by the Center confirm this. One of our most important objectives is to raise awareness and provide our young people with the opportunity to learn how to build the traditional instruments of our country. Among the activities carried out for these purposes, the following stand out:
1) the exhibition My Music: Traditional Instruments of Puerto Rico (2014-2015) that we exhibited for two years at the Las Américas Museum in Old San Juan and that is now at Casa Paoli, as one of our permanent exhibits ;
2) in Isabela, together with the Mabodamaca Corporation, we celebrated the Encounter with the Marimbula (2010) and
3) in alliance with the Cuatro Project, the Encounter with researchers of string instruments (1997) and the Contest for the manufacture of the Cuatro Antiguo, the Tiple and the Bordonúa (1999) were organized in Ponce.
Currently, the Center has been organizing g the William Cumpiano Art Workshop in the facilities of our headquarters in Ponce where, with the support of the Flamboyán Fund for the Arts, instrument assembly, serigraphy and engraving workshops (2022-2023) will be conducted. Currently we are planning a virtual workshop open to the public on the construction of a Puerto Rican tiple .