globalFEST: The New Golden Age of Latin Music Tour To Feature LAS CAFETERAS and ORKESTA MENDOZA

globalFEST: The New Golden Age of Latin Music reveals the global energies now at work in the American Latin music scene. The tour is divided into two sections: February 1 - March 3 concerts will feature a double bill with Las Cafeteras and Orkesta Mendoza; and March 7 - March 15 shows will feature a double bill with Las Cafeteras and Mariachi Flor de Toloache.

Acoustic alt-folk band Las Cafeteras, from East LA; indie mambo Orkesta Mendoza, from Tucson, AZ, and NYC's all-female mariachi group Flor de Toloache, some of the freshest, most innovative and provocative bands in contemporary Latin music, take turns in the spotlight for globalFEST: The New Golden Age of Latin Music, the newest globalFest On The Road touring production. globalFEST On The Road is a flexible touring and curating concept based on globalFEST's annual flagship festival in New York City, a one-day event that showcases a dizzying range of musicians from around the globe.

The six-piece band Las Cafeteras began as a group of students at Eastside Cafe, a community space in East Los Angeles, where they learned to play son jarocho, a traditional music style from Veracruz, a state in the Gulf of Mexico. All of the band's members are children of immigrants.

The group features traditional Mexican folk instruments including the jarana, an 8-string guitar; the quijada, a donkey jawbone (which serves as a percussive scraper) and a tarima, a wooden platform for dancing. While rooted in son jarocho, the LA Times called their sound a "uniquely Angeleno mishmash of punk, hip-hop, beat music, cumbia and rock." It's a mix-and-match of styles and sources that serves to deliver socially conscious lyrics, in both English and Spanish.

They have released two recordings. Their song "La Bamba Rebelde", a politically-charged remake of "La Bamba" (perhaps the most famous son jarocho) from their CD It's Time (2012) became a theme song for the telenovela Bajo El Mismo Cielo on the Telemundo network. Las Cafeteras' second album, Tastes Like LA, featuring the powerful song "If I Was President", was released in April 2016.

Orkesta Mendoza, originally founded by singer and guitarist Sergio Mendoza in 2009 to play a 20-minute tribute set honoring Cuban mambo king, Dámaso Perez Prado, is a dapper sextet that plays a high-energy combination ofmambo, cumbia, psychedelia and rock. The Orkesta´s music, arranged to suggest a big band with a touch of lo-fi electronics, speaks of a borderless world in which US culture and Latin traditions come together.

"I think it has to do with being near the border," explained Mendoza, who also toured and recorded with Calexico, in an interview with the online magazine Rhythm Passport. "I grew up in Nogales, Sonora. Living in Mexico exposed me to cumbia and many regional styles of Mexico, such as mariachi and norteño. When I was 7, I moved to Nogales, Arizona. I started getting into American music and that is where the mixture of cultures begins."

"From about 12 to 24 I completely forgot about Latin music. I studied a bit of many styles of music during that time. A little jazz, salsa, ska and a lot of classic rock and roll. I took a little bit from all the styles I had played and that's how I started Orkesta Mendoza. Today we just want to rock more. Of course, it is Latin-based, but we like turning up our amps and consider ourselves a rock band."

It's the music of ¡Vamos a Guarachar! (Let's Party!), the band's most recent release and an invitation to dance with a travelogue of styles that goes from surf rock to mambo and pop rock.

Winners of a 2017 Latin GRAMMY for their album Las Caras Lindas (The Pretty Faces), the all-female Flor de Toloache will partner with Las Cafeteras for final leg of the tour, beginning March 7th in Salt Lake City, UT)

The band was founded in 2008 by Mexican-Dominican violinist, vocalist, composer and arranger Mireya Ramos, who grew up in Puerto Rico listening to her father's mariachi records, and Cuban-American vocalist and vihuela-player Shae Fiol. It started as a trio featuring harp, violin and vihuela (a small guitar-like instrument) before becoming a full ensemble. The members hail from diverse cultural backgrounds including Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Australia, Colombia, Germany, Italy and the United States. In 2015, they were nominated for a Latin GRAMMY for their self-titled debut, which paid their respects to traditional mariachi music while also adding their own R&B influences. The name Flor de Toloache, (toloache flower) alludes to the white flower of the Datura, a toxic plant known as a love potion in Mexican folk legend.

globalFEST: The New Golden Age of Latin Music is the second national touring extension of globalFEST and the first to spotlight Latin artists based in the United States. In addition to concert performances, the tour will include outreach programs at universities across the country and matinee performances for young audiences. It continues the mission of globalFEST to bring the world's music to America.

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