Xiomara Fortuna

Outpost is pleased to partner once again with the week-long 2023 AfroMundo Festival: Resistance & Creativity, scheduled from April 15-22 at multiple venues throughout Bernalillo County. Exploring the histories, languages, literature, poetics, religious and cultural practices of Afro peoples from the featured regions of Honduras, Peru, Brazil, United States, the festival’s programs explore the ethnic and racial complexities of Latinidad and include films, music, dance, oral traditions, culinary and other arts. This special Benefit Concert for the AfroMundo Festival features singer and composer Xiomara Fortuna, who is renowned worldwide as “La Reina de Fusion.” She is the Dominican Republic’s foremost progressive artist of the last four decades and a pioneer of Afro Caribbean fusion whose compositions defy stereotypes. Fortuna’s performances and recordings incorporate Afro Dominican roots music fused with jazz, reggae, pop, contemporary rock, Latin, merengue, and bachata, creating a sound uniquely her own. Her compositions are described as “voyages across time, chants that echo deeply rooted memories, women’s tunes, journeys through the rhythms of the world, and poems of social consciousness and coexistence.” She sings of the struggles of the Dominican people and has been a presence on stages where popular movements call for tolerance, education, environmental justice, and peace. Fortuna has received many honors and awards, including the Gandhi Medal from UNESCO; the Medalla al Mérito de las Artes from the Presidency of the Dominican Republic and the Women’s Ministry, and her album, Viendoaver, was selected as #9 in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of 35 Best Spanish- Language and Bilingual Albums of 2021. Fortuna’s music has been included in important national and international compilations and she has released 13 albums, independently produced with Ile Akwa. Joining her tonight will be Albuquerque's own Claudio Tolousse, guitar; Kanoa Kaluhiwa, tenor saxophone; Asher Barerras, bass; and Arnaldo Acosta, percussion. This concert is a benefit for the AfroMundo 2023 Festival. NO MEMBER PASSES AVAILABLE.