As part of the Esther Hays Concert series, the UCR Orchestra and Chamber Singers, conducted by Ruth Charloff, have organized a public, kid-friendly concert celebrating Hispanic and Latin American music. Happening on Sunday, April 19 at 3 p.m. at the University Theater, the concert will feature performances by many performers with roots in the Inland Empire.

“The concert will be fun and entertaining, and is designed to welcome all kinds of families with our repertoire of accessible, exciting Latin American and Spanish music,” Charloff said. “Kids will encounter tango and flamenco-oriented music, perhaps for the first time. We have a wonderful, kid-friendly narrator in Taiquira Williams, a Riverside actor and middle-school teacher. We have the Chamber Singers, to be accompanied by our own live orchestral percussionists and brass. And we have our own terrific UCR Orchestra, most of whose members are really only ten years or so older than the kids in the audience, and perhaps in that sense directly inspiring.”

The Esther Hays Concert series honors late physician, researcher, medical school administrator, and philanthropist Esther Hays, a Riverside local and a devotee of classical music.

“[Hays] sought me out in 2009 for ways to support orchestral events for children, and decided to endow a fund for the UCR Music Department to present an ongoing series of free concerts as a gift to the children and families in our area,” Charloff said. “The UCR Orchestra has presented a variety of family concerts on different themes since that time, with wonderful actors participating as storytellers and emcees.”

In addition to the performances, the night will include a movement game/song in Spanish and a sing-along in English that many kids will recognize from the Disney animated movie “Coco,” as well as a raffle.

“Hearing different kinds of music is incredibly valuable,” Charloff said. “It can be exciting and surprising, and it opens ears, minds and hearts. For kids, it might lead to taking up an instrument or singing in a choir, which is healthy and rewarding in all kinds of ways, or even in just becoming more broadly-based citizens of the world, open to varieties of cultural experiences and interested in supporting them.”

Attend the show for free

FEATURED PHOTO. Malagueña, Andalucia, Coco, Carmen, Huapango, singalongs, surprises and more!