617-492-1515 • Cambridge, MA 02140 •

SABOR Y MEMORIA COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT IDEAS

Greetings!

I am thrilled that Sol y Canto will be performing our new suite, SABOR y MEMORIA: a Musical Feast in Seven Courses at your venue. Thank you so much for booking us!

As you know, Sabor y Memoria (Flavor and Memory) is a multi-media musical suite that touches on many aspects of food: real, healthy food, food as a cultural identifier, nostalgia for one’s home country, the joy of cooking, immigration and hunger, among other topics. We’re very excited about the show and its potential impact beyond the concert hall, and we’d like to offer you some help to make it a stunning success, if you feel like you'd want our help in doing so. We would like to partner with you to promote the show by reaching out on your behalf to any local community organizations whose missions relate to the themes of Sabor y Memoria that you're not already in touch with. We know how unlikely it is that you might have staff or time to work on show-specific community engagement outreach and this is our way of adding value to what we can offer you. We have two main goals in mind: To attract a larger audience and to help these organizations use our show to further their missions and educational impact.

Here are some ideas, based on our 26 years of touring experience, to help accomplish this. We arrived at these ideas on our own but had input from Peter Lesser of the Egg in Albany and Mike Terry of the Whiting in Flint, MI, both of whom gave us the green light to share it with other "Sabor y Memoria" presenters as they believe it would be immensely helpful. Please review this list and consider which are most appealing for your community. These are just ideas for you to play around with, and I do realize some of these need several months of notice to organize or contemplate, but I'm sending you the complete list nonetheless, for your consideration and/or feedback, which will be useful.

  1. Dedicate the show to a “local hero” or someone who has made a difference in your community such as community gardens, sustainable agriculture, slow food or a local chef’s collaborative (*please see complete list below) by organizing a pre or post-performance reception also attended by the artists or just the composer if desirable.
  1. Host a lunch or meal for donors, patrons or a targeted collaborating community organization prior to the show with Sol y Canto as cultural educators so that the donors convert into mini-ambassadors by spreading the word and bringing their own friends to the performance.
  1. Set up tables in the lobby with literature about one or more of these local community organizations or have food provided by a local restaurant that serves Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Venezuelan, Argentine, other Latin cuisine or any other cuisine of your choice.
  1. Create awareness by doing a food drive and donating to a local food bank.
  1. Promote to an already assembled audience via a contextual activity preceding the concert such as an art exhibit of photos featuring food or agriculture, a lecture at the public library about sustainable farming, a cooking class at an organic grocery store or school cafeteria, etc.
  1. Promote the Sabor y Memoria performance to Spanish class instructors in schools, universities or the community; explore the possibility of students receiving extra credit for attending the show.
  1. Publicize the show in music schools and university music departments; offer student rush tickets.
  1. Offer a group sales rate or priority seating option for people associated with participating organizations. Or provide organizations with tickets to the show at a discount that they can sell at full price as a fundraising activity, thus giving the organizations an incentive to sell as many tickets as possible.
  1. Sol y Canto provides full color poster and handbill PDF's with large margins for publicity. You can arrange to have these stuffed in farmers market, organic or healthy markets’ shopping bags in the weeks leading up to the show. These materials are available at after August 15th.
  1. Sol y Canto provides free mp3 downloads for you to post to your site as promotional teasers. These materials are available at after August 15th. Additionally, composer Brian Amador and singer Rosi Amador are also happy to offer phone interviews regarding the themes of Sabor y Memoria and the process of its creation.

Do you know of any associations in your community that you would recommend contacting or can we help you identify some of these? The following is a list of different types of groups to consider.*

  • Local food or slow food organizations
  • Organic food stores
  • Farmers markets
  • Northeast Organic Farming Association, Sustainable Table, Organic Valley Coop or other sustainable farming organizations
  • Farm Aid or other agricultural cooperatives
  • Nutritionists or healthy food initiatives
  • Cooking schools
  • Local Chef’s Collaborative
  • Hunger non-profit or food bank
  • Immigrant support organizations
  • Local affiliates of national organizations such as CFA (Consumer Federation of America or NCFC (National Council of Farmer Cooperative)
  • Spanish language schools and music schools
  • Latin American or Pan-American associations

Would you be willing to identify some of these organizations and if so, would you like us to reach out to them for you, to connect you directly? Are you interested in making available discounted tickets or group sales offers, or would you be interested in organizing a luncheon, reception, food tasting, or food drive (if you haven't already thought of any of the above)? We would love to contact you by phone at your convenience to further discuss these particulars so that Sabor y Memoria will be a huge success in your venue. To schedule a phone appointment with me please contact my executive assistant Brian McCarthy by email at or by phone Monday to Thursday from 10am to 5pm at 617-492-1515.

Warm regards,

Rosi Amador

Managing Director/Lead Singer

Sol y Canto