Paula Alva Garcia grew up in Peru and moved to the United States for college when she received a scholarship for music. Garcia came to UO for graduate school and now pursues a doctorate program at the School of Dance and Music.
Garcia won the Cykler Song Scholar award from SODM during the 2023-2024 academic year, and she spent the year researching the music of Rosa Mercedes Ayarza de Morales (1881–1969), a Peruvian composer and an artist, whose song Garcia will be singing at the festival.
“I wanted to create an event that allows performers and writers of the song to interact with each other,” Stephen Rodgers said. Rodgers advised Garcia on the research, and he has taught music theory at the SODM for over 20 years.
Recently, Rodgers has seen the SOMD programs shift from only focusing on traditional music to touching on more diverse music.
Throughout his music career, Rodgers noticed that most music conferences focus on either the performance or academic field, but they are seldom studied in tandem. When creating the Cascade Song Festival, Rodgers and his colleague from University of Washington, Stephen Rumph, wanted the event to be collaborative and interdisciplinary.
“One thing that we wanted to do was to create a space for voices and composers that usually do not get performed,” Rodgers said. He listed diverse types of music such as “dune metal and broadway songs“ that are beyond the classical art songs that usually get a lot of coverage.
“I am excited to see how UO and UW students interact on Thursday,” Rodgers said, as Thursday’s performance features students from different campuses. He sees the value in interacting with each other as students and performers.
Garcia will perform “The Town Cries”: Rosa Mercedes’s Antiguos Pregones de Lima and Peruvian Cultural Identity. Pregones translated means “calling,” Garcia said. The song features street vendors in Peru and tells stories with strong emotions and culture.
“There are some moments where I analyzed parts of the song as flirting, and other parts as trying to bring customers in to buy products,” Garcia said. She sees a wider range of expressions expressed in these folk songs compared to art songs sung in western languages.
The performers at the event were selected through call for proposal applications. Students from UO, UW, across the country and internationally will perform and participate in the festival alongside Natasha Loges, the keynote speaker. Also, American lyric tenor Nicholas Phan and pianist Myra Huang will perform a recital at the event.
Rodgers is especially excited about the recital by Phan and Huang on Saturday, since both of them will be performing as main characters. He said it’s common to have the pianist match the singer to cover any errors, however, this performance will be a full performance from both tenor and piano.
The event will be held at the Tykeson Rehearsal Hall at Berwick Hall by the SODM campus from Thursday to Saturday from morning to the evening depending on the schedule. The door is open for everyone, and students are welcome to attend for free. On Saturday’s recital, there is a $10 cost for non-UO student general admission.
“We want to be a bridge builder; performance to scholars, students from different campuses, and through different cultures,” Rodgers said.
