COMING SEPTEMBER 18!
ALBUM RELEASE
WE HAVE IRÉ
ORIGINAL CAST RECORDING
COMING THIS NOVEMBER | Online premiere of We Have Iré
Saturday, November 20 at 6:00 P.M PST
*We have Iré will be available on-demand for 10 days from November 20 at 6:00 P.M PST to November 30 at 11:59 P.M PST
music by Yosvany Terry
with special guest Xiomara Laugart
words by Paul S. Flores
featuring the voices and real-life stories of
DJ LEYDIS
CHRISTIN EVE CATO
DENMIS BAIN
RAMÓN RAMOS ALAYO
available from IRÉ Records on
iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, and other digital platforms
MEET THE ARTISTS at a LIVESTREAM EVENT 4:30pm PST/ 7:30 pm EDT Sept 18
featuring the Making-Of video by filmmaker AMÍLCAR NAVARRO
WATCH the Livestream on Facebook @miamilightproject @pregones/PRTT
@MACLAarte @SolProjectNYC
IRÉ Records
New York, August 18, 2021. – IRÉ Records proudly announces the release on of the original cast recording album of We Have Iré, by poet / performance artist / playwright Paul S. Flores with original music by Grammy-winning alto saxophonist / percussionist / composer Yosvany Terry. A Facebook release Livestream party is set for Saturday, September 18, 2021, at 4:30 p.m. PDT/ 7:30 p.m. EDT featuring a 28-minute “Making of” video by filmmaker Amilcar Navarro, followed by a talkback with the artistic team, cast members, and producers’ representatives.
Directed by Rosalba Rolón of Pregones/PRTT in New York, We Have Iré is a multimedia theater work that portrays real-life stories of the Cuban emigré artists who appear in it, framed by Flores’s own exploration of his roots as a Cuban-American as he traveled back to Cuba with them. Through the medium of music -- always an essential element in the Cuban story – We Have Iré relives their struggles to relocate to the US and explores the new identities they constructed in the process.
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DJ LEYDIS
aka “Nené” from Camagüey, who took to the sea in an overcrowded motorboat to pursue her dream of being a Hip-Hop DJ.
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PAUL S. FLORES
Who plays “Christian,” a Cuban American spoken word poet from San Francisco travelling to Cuba looking to connect with his grandmother’s roots.
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YOSVANY TERRY
aka “Jony,” born into a famous Cuban musical family in the province of Camagüey, who dreams of playing jazz in the New York City scene.
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RAMÓN RAMOS ALAYO
aka “Monchi,” a rambunctious rascal from the countryside of Santiago de Cuba sent to learn modern dance and ballet in Havana.
We Have Iré was commissioned and sponsored by a Who’s Who of contemporary American theater, including the National Performance Network, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) in San Francisco, Pregones/PRTT in New York City, GALA Theatre in Washington D.C., MACLA/Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana in San José, MECA-Houston, Miami Light Project in Miami, Creative Capital, Creative Work Fund, the MAP Fund and Center for Cultural Innovation.
Unfortunately, as everyone knows, there was trouble in 2020. With a 12-piece ensemble of actors, dancers, and musicians slated to go on tour, the pandemic had other plans, and all touring stopped, everywhere.
But Flores and company had -- as the title put it -- Iré. That’s a Yoruba word, universally known in Cuba, that means “good fortune.” Iré arrived when Beth Boone, of Miami Light Project, offered to underwrite an original cast album.
MACLA and Pregones soon signed on as co-sponsors, and the artists devised an audio-only version showcasing YOSVANY TERRY’s score for the show, written in the Cuban jazz idiom that he is known for and incorporating traditional Yoruba songs, hip-hop, and monologues from the show.
WE HAVE IRÉ was recorded in May 2021 at the Samurai Hotel Recording Studio in Queens, New York, by Terry’s quartet, consisting of first-call New York musicians: JAVI SANTIAGO (piano), MATT BREWER (bass), and MARK WHITFIELD, JR. (drums / percussion), with a special-guest turn by legendary Cuban diva XIOMARA LAUGART. Additional recording was done in June at Patio de Ochún Studio in Alameda, CA.
“I wanted the ancestors and the musical traditions of Cuba to shine throughout,”
PAUL S. FLORES of his decision to collaborate with composer YOSVANY TERRY, whose own story of reinvention through emigration is one of the basic threads of the work. One of the leading lights of a generation of Cuban jazz musicians, now at the height of their powers, who came to the United States in the 1990s and supercharged New York music in the process, Terry not only possesses a personal and identifiable saxophone voice but is a busy composer / producer who also directs the Harvard Big Band. His score, says Flores, “conveys the emotional arc of the story through the music, jazz, AfroCuban songs and verse. ‘Camagüey Blues’ and ‘Idea Of Harlem’ lead us through the naïveté and struggles of the characters to the dazzling destiny realized by these talented immigrant artists. By the time we hear the song ‘Subversive,’ we feel like we have survived the storm, arrived on the beach, ready to face the next challenge.”
Follow
Pregones/PRTT - Instagram @pregonesprtt
Miami Light Project - Facebook @Miamilightproject
MACLA - Instagram @macla_sanjose
YBCA – Facebook @YBCA
Paul S. Flores - Facebook @paul.s.flores
Yosvany Terry - Instagram @yosvanyterry
We Have Iré Original Cast Recording was supported by the National Performance Network Engagement Fund www.npnweb.org