Chicago Public Library (CPL) is celebrating Día de los Muertos by welcoming Day of the Dead LIVE! the musical with a series of free performances starting October 29 through November 1. Day of the Dead LIVE! takes patrons on a journey celebrating Día de los Muertos, the holiday of family remembrance. With music from classical and popular composers, Mexican and European, this hour long musical theatrical performance featuring 6-foot puppets, stilt walkers, ghosts, skeletons, aerialists and dancers in a cultural and playful escape that is fun for all ages.
“At CPL, we take pride in celebrating the vibrant cultural mosaic of Chicago,” said Library Commissioner Chris Brown. “Our Day of the Dead LIVE programming offers a powerful way to honor and remember loved ones, while deepening our appreciation for this important tradition. These events bring families, friends, and neighbors together in a shared celebration of life and memory. We warmly invite you to join us in this uplifting experience, where community and tradition come together.”
Day of the Dead LIVE! presents music for adults and children of all ages and will transform the Cindy Pritzker Auditorium at Harold Washington Library Center into festive days of remembrance. The performance will channel different Día de los Muertos imagery and traditions including an ofrenda (family shrine) that will illuminate throughout the performance where images of the cast’s family and Mexican revolutionaries will appear, including Francisco "Pancho" Villa, Emiliano Zapata Salazar, and Cesar Chavez on horseback; the women soldiers known as Adelitas holding Mexican flags; artists Frida Kahlo, José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, and David Alfaro Siqueiros, as well as the author and women's rights advocate, Juana Inés de la Cruz.
“Day of the Dead is a meaningful cultural celebration that has extended from Mexico to the barrios of Chicago,” said Mariella Colon, Librarian of Civic, Cultural and Literary Engagement. “By offering our patrons access to high-quality artistic performances in both Spanish and English, we are creating opportunities for our communities to come together, learn and celebrate this rich tradition.”
The family-friendly performances will open on Tuesday, October 29 and will run through Friday, November 1 with Spanish-only performances happening on October 30 at 1:00pm pm and October 31 at 6:00pm on Halloween Day.
SCHEDULE FOR PERFORMANCES AT HAROLD WASHINGTON LIBRARY CENTER:
Tuesday, October 29, 2024 – 6:00pm-7:00pm (English)
Wednesday, October 30, 2024 – 1:00pm-2:00pm (Spanish)
Wednesday, October 30, 2024 – 6:00pm-7:00pm (English)
Thursday, October 31, 2024 – 1:00pm-2:00pm (English)
Thursday, October 31, 2024 – 6:00pm-7:00pm (Spanish) (Halloween Day)
Friday, November 1, 2024 – 2:00pm-3:00pm (English) (Day of the Dead)
The music is performed by the 26-year-old virtuoso pianist, composer, conductor, teacher and musical scholar, Llewellyn Sánchez- Werner. The merry life-sized puppets and direction from the circus-trained aerialist Juanita Cardenas. The full cast includes Victor Ayala, Jean Tae Francis, Agave L’amour, Ryan Shinji Murray, Anthony Rodriguez, Tyler West, Lighting Design Kyle Driggs, Stage Manager Pher Gleason and Stagehand Audra Brandt.
MUSICAL PROGRAMMING INCLUDES:
SAINT-SAËNS Danse Macabre (arr. Liszt/Horowitz) 8’
PONCE Intermezzo 3’
RUBIO Jarabe Tapatío (arr. Earl Wild) 4’
VELÁZQUEZ Bésame Mucho (arr. Sanchez-Werner) 4’
LISZT Dante Sonata 12’
CHÁVEZ Hoja de Álbum 3’
PONCE Balada Mexicana (arr. Sanchez-Werner) 10’
BERNSTEIN Mambo! (arr. Sánchez-Werner) 3’
Images and video of previous Day of the Dead LIVE! performances can be found here.
ABOUT CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY
Since 1873, Chicago Public Library (CPL) has encouraged lifelong learning by welcoming all people and offering equal access to information, entertainment, and knowledge through innovative services, programs, and technology. Through its 81 locations, the Library provides free access to a rich collection of materials, both physical and digital, and presents the highest quality author discussions, exhibits, and programs for children, teens, and adults. For more information, please call (312) 747-4300 or visit chipublib.org. To follow CPL on social media, visit us on Twitter (@chipublib), Facebook (@chipublib), or Instagram (@chicagopubliclibrary).
ABOUT LLEWELLYN SÁNCHEZ - WERNER
Llewellyn Sánchez-Werner began playing the piano at two, having already learned to read. His Mother, Martha, a lawyer from Guadalajara, had recently relocated to Santa Monica, taking her infant to Hollywood Bowl concerts. Noting his reaction to music, she purchased a piano and found he could eke out melodies. No teacher was willing to take a two-year-old student. So she hired a teacher for herself, letting her son listen. When he crawled up on the bench and played back what the teacher had demonstrated, the problem was solved. By three he could read music. At five he began music classes at Ventura College, along with home schooling by his mother. At six he made his orchestral debuts with the Ventura Symphony Orchestra and the New West Symphony. When still a toddler, Van Cliburn noticed his unwavering attention at his concert, lifting him up from the audience onto the stage and inviting him backstage afterwards.
Now 26, Llewelyn has always been loath to embrace the “prodigy” label which he describes as, “being about your being good for your age, instead of good.”
At ten, Llewelyn moved with his Mother to New York City, continuing online music classes with Ventura College. By 14 he was a full-time student at The Juilliard School where he became their youngest graduate. His time there was, “Fantastic! I was treated like everyone’s little brother. For me it was like Hogwarts. I was so grateful.” Following a year off for travel, he enrolled in the Yale University School of Music (the only music school in the Ivy Leagues) in their highly competitive Artist Diploma program.
Llewellyn’s busy schedule has included performances for President Obama at The White House, for President Biden at his second Inaugural Concert at the Kennedy Center, as well as performances for President Peña Nieto of Mexico, Prime Minister Peres of Israel, and President Kagame of Rwanda.
Arts Advocacy has been an essential component of his oeuvre and for which he received the Atlantic Council Young Global Citizen Award in recognition of his commitment to social action through music. His many international concerts include Iraq where General Petraeus commended his, “courageous humanitarian contributions through the arts, strengthening the ties that unite nations.” The Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra’s commitment to performing made a deep impression, “despite threats from extremists, the musicians continued to rehearse, donning bullet proof vests, the conductor packing a pistol. That’s how strongly they believed in the power of classical music. To me, they are heroes.”
The lives of composers and musical history is a passion Llewellyn likes to share. He’s an accessible advocate for classical music, “especially younger audiences love a blueprint of what they’re going to hear, to know what to listen for, what is the story the music tells. People can better relate to the colorful moments in a score if they’re prepared, if they’ve been told a little bit about the composer, and their relationship to the classical canon. Audiences today want to break down the old barriers and see concert experience and musical repertoire anew.”
Llewellyn has performed for many of the great orchestras and maestros including Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, Peter Oundjian, Tito Muñoz, Michael Morgan, and Karina Canellakis. His many prizes include the First Prize at the Concert Artists Guild 2022 International Competition and the Gilmore Young Artist Award. Recent performances have paired him with Renée Fleming and Eric Owens, among others.
Day of the Dead LIVE! is only part of his upcoming schedule of performances that includes an Artist in Residence for the Newport Music Festival, a return to Sienna and Luka festivals in Italy, The Sembrich Summer Festival in upstate New York, as well as venues in Nantucket and East Hampton.
ABOUT JUANITA CÁRDENAS ARTISTIC DIRECTOR AND PUPPETEER
Colombian born artist Juanita Cárdenas is a cutting- edge innovator, combining aerial performance and puppetry. She is the artistic director of the circus theater collective Visceral Abstractions which has produced sold out shows at House of Yes, Slipper Room, and Coney Island USA. Her work reflects deep community connections, nurtured through collaborations, friendships, skill sharing, and belief in solidarity.
Born in Bogotá, at ten she moved with her family to Miami. Coming to New York for a BFA at Cooper Union, on graduation she moved to Buenos Aires, and later to Rio de Janeiro, for circus training and performance opportunities, before returning to New York.
Juanita learned her remarkable sewing and fabrication skills from her Grandmother and circus experiences. Her varied work includes creative and technical direction, design and fabrication of costumes, props, and puppets, choreography, puppetry, and aerial performance. With an undying love for live performance, she has created a menagerie of animated creatures, glittering costumes, and absurdist circuses that she describes as embodying “inexhaustible joy”.
Juanita has worked with Basil Twist, Julie Atlas Muz, Hovey Burgess, House of Yes, The Muse ABCirque, and Bindlestiff Family Circus, touring internationally with Blunderland. In 2022 she received the Bindlestiff Family Circus First of May award which funded the creation of her original show Notes from the Void. She was puppet director for the Panto Project’s Dick Rivington and the Cat at the Abrons Art Center (2021 and 2022) and set and production designer of Viva DeConcini’s radical lesbian puppet TV show Beautiful, Evil, Lost. She directed, co-created, and co-produced Sex Ed 3.0 at House of Yes in February 2023. Juanita also teaches aerial arts to adults and circus skills to children at The Muse in Brooklyn.
