La Peña del SurCo Ensemble

In Spring 2025 Gubner and Larrea received a Lifelong Learning grant from the Arizona Comission on the Arts to start an integerational Peña del SurCo ensemble to help encourage more people to perform at our peñas. Led by Maxi Larrea and Jennie Gubner, the ensemble primarily focuses on teaching folk music styles from Argentina, but we also invite guest instructors to bring songs from other regions of Latin America (this semester our guest instructors were Esteban Hernández Parra (Colombia), José Luis Puerta (Puerto Rico) and Diana Peralta (Mexico). The ensemble is open to students (with a for credit option), faculty and staff at the University, and community members of all ages. To join you should be comfortable on your instrument of choice, but we welcome musicians and singers of various skill levels (notation not required). Throughout the academic year we meet on Saturday mornings at the University of Arizona School of Music.

Spring 2025 Ensemble members: Mitchell Alaman, Alice Blistein, Eugene Boronow, Fatima Corona, Maria Fausti, Angelo Fausti, Andres Infante, Oscar Infante, Mary Monaghan, Maile Nadelhoffer, Diego Nava, Kelsey Nussbaum, Gabriela Ocadiz, Esteban Parra, Diana Peralta, Liliana Peterson, Jacobo Ramirez, Jessica Retis, Michelina Siml, and Clarrisa Smith.

Spring 2025 Repertoire: “Del Monte Vengo, “ (Chacarera - Sixto Palavecino) “La Simple,” (Characera - Pateco Carabajal) “Todo Cambia,” (Canción - Julio Numhauser)” “Carnavalito del Duende,” (Carnavalito - Gustavo 'Cuchi' Leguizamón y Manuel J. Castilla), “Vidala para Mi Sombra,” (Vidala - Julio Santos Espinosa), “Zamba de Mi Esperanza” (Luis Profili), “El Merenciano” (Colombia - taught by guest instructor Esteban Parra).