The Clark Art Institute

Conceived by performer, composer, and AMOC* member Keir GoGwilt, Zarabanda Variations bring together a group of visionary composers, improvisers, and performers, inspired by musical histories of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century New Spain. The zarabanda is a dance with possibly Spanish, American, and Arab origins, a plausible etymology from the Bantu nsala-banda, which eventually transformed into a courtly European Baroque dance. This performance sounds the archival gaps of early American music, creating a surprising and vibrant synthesis of European and Latin Baroque, folk, and contemporary musical traditions.