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Children's Chorus Of San Antonio Teams Up With Doc Watkins In Las Americas Event

Brittain Pittman
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Contributed Photo
Doc Watkins

The San Antonio Symphony's part of the Las Americas Festival has finished, but there's another event in the series.  It involves the pairing of Doc Watkins' Big Band with the Children's Chorus of San Antonio.

"We have the Children's Chorus of San Antonio, along with my band, which is a 9-piece salsa band, and we're going to be celebrating the music of Cuba and Puerto Rico and Brazil, from South America, Latin America and the Caribbean."

This winter's Las Americas Festival celebrates the music of North, Central and South America. Watkins says the Children's Chorus project takes things in a different direction.

"It's something a little bit different, something you wouldn't necessarily expect from the children's chorus, but it's going to be a fabulous show."

And the music. 

"It's very rhythmic music. This kind of music is extremely rhythmic, I mean, even in my band we have three percussionists. Which normally, in a 16-piece big band you have one drummer. In the salsa band we have three percussionists and sometimes these bands will have four or sometimes more."

The concert is Tuesday night at the Tobin Center, but Watkins explains the seating layout is different from their usual fare.

"We do have cabaret seating.  And that's a unique setup for the Tobin."

Watkins says this whole project has been a blast.

"Oh yeah, this is great. I love this stuff."

For more on the Children's Chorus of San Antonio go here

For more on Doc Watkinsgo here

Jack Morgan can be reached at jack@tpr.org and on Twitter at @JackMorganii