Music History2009.09.17. // Music
Based in San Diego, California, play and sing the secular music of California from the days when our state was part of Spain and then Mexico. These sweet, melodic pieces include waltzes and polkas used for dancing, and songs about love and rancho life, often with comic lyrics. Although the music includes elements of Spanish music, it also includes influences from European and American folk music — as trading ships often visited the coast of Alta California, from the indigenous peoples of California, and from the diverse heritages of the early Mexican settlers.
Los Californios is a self-supporting project of San Diego Friends of Old-Time Music, a California non-profit educational corporation. This project works to expose California audiences to their own historic musical heritage; to research, document and transcribe social music and dances from eighteenth and nineteenth century Spanish-speaking Californians; and to teach and distribute this information to a wide audience of musicians, dancers and enthusiasts through workshops, performances, articles and papers presented at educational conferences, and music classes at Sherman Heights Community Center.
