Experience the powerful musical traditions that stretch back to the founding of El Presidio de San Francisco in 1776. Mexican roots group Los Cenzontles (The Mockingbirds) joins forces with early music violinist Shira Kammen for a hauntingly evocative concert that resurrects the early marriage of European music and the mixed roots of traditional Mexican music. This live performance of work from their new CD unites Medieval and early Renaissance European music with indigenous and African musical traditions. All of these ingredients form the rhythms and instrumentation of the Mexican roots music we know today, and A La Mar exquisitely celebrates this blending of cultures.

California-based Mexican roots band Los Cenzontles is accustomed to illuminating deep, often unexpected musical connections that lie between their own refined understanding of Mexican musical traditions and the music of more distant cultures, separated in time or place from those traditions. Several past Los Cenzontles projects have underscored and celebrated common roots with Irish, African-American, Creole, Cuban, and other cultures with artists such as Taj Mahal, The Chieftains, Andre Thierry and many others.