Photo/Foto: Marlène Ramírez-Cancio

Songs of the Pampas in Porteño Style

In interpreting Alberto Ginastera’s Cinco Canciones Populares Argentinas, Mendoza was drawn to the composition because of its historical irony: in the Conquest of the Desert, Argentina’s government systematically annihilated its indigenous population, yet criollo Ginastera’s musical definition of argentinidad drew heavily from Amerindian culture.

Biography

Flora Mendoza is a singer, actor, and aspiring composer in New York City. A recent graduate of Yale University, she is in the early stages of her career and is exploring ways to synthesize her interests and experiences across academia, genres, and mediums. Informed by her Mexican and Spanish heritage, she aims to redefine the Western canon by resurrecting, historicizing, and performing popular song of the Iberian and Latin American classical traditions. She was a participant in the Hemispheric Institute's EMERGENYC program.