We the Many… at Arts Midwest and Franklin County Arts Council

Franklin County Fine Arts Council and La Luz “We the Many” concert coming Mar 4, 7pm
Matt Grohe, Hampton Chronicle

The Franklin County Arts Council, in cooperation with Arts Midwest and La Luz Centro Cultural in Hampton will be presenting a free to the public “We The Many” festival concert on March 4th at 7pm at Faith Baptist Church. This year's concert is a departure from the format the March Arts Council event has followed for the past 12 years since its debut in Hampton in 2011 with the “Roots and Wings” concert series kicked off by famed Iowa Opera Singer Simon Estes, but is part of activities sponsored by an Arts Midwest Grant in collaboration with the annual Young Performing Artist event that the FCAC has done the past ten years.

This year's festival will be a grand affair, with performances planned by Latin American and Caribbean themed act Calle Sur, opera tenor Mario Arevalo of El Salvador, and the combined high school choirs of HD-CAL and West Fork. The event is sponsored by Arts Midwest, Franklin County Arts Council, and La Luz Centro Cultural. The festival will be offered for free to the public with costs being primarily covered by a $100,000, “We The Many” grant awarded to La Luz by Arts Midwest in 2022 to promote Latin themed cultural events in Franklin County. 

Leon Kuehner, Franklin County Fine Arts Council board member was instrumental in securing the acts that developed the theme, leveraging his 35 years of band experience and over a decade of fine arts involvement to bring it all together. La Luz, Kuehner and Arts Midwest started working on the idea last year after a meeting with senior staff of the agencies in late October 2022. The We The Many Festival is part of a series of culturally themed endeavors “Centering BIPOC, Tribally affiliated, and Immigrant communities.” which will also include a Peace Plaza mural, mariachi band event in April and Gran Festival in June. 

Although the festival performance is March 4th at 7pm, as part of tenor Mario Arevalo’s visit to the area, he will visit CAL, West Fork and HDCAL schools to inspire students to get involved in the arts and give 15-20 minute “master's classes” wherein he will provide high level vocal instruction to budding high school vocalists. Arevalo was born in poverty in El Salvador and emigrated to America when he was 14, following his mother who had made the journey 6 years prior. From his humble circumstances Arevalo overcame many obstacles and much adversity to first learn English, then work his way to operatic stardom through choir and music classes. Arevalo credits his ESL teacher for discovering and nurturing his talents, acts which have propelled him to renown and allowed him to perform on opera stages around the world in such places as Austria, Canada, Italy, Peru and many Central American countries. Arevalo has been featured on Fox5 in an episode called " The American Dream" NBC and Telemundo featured him for Hispanic Heritage Month in 2020 and was included in the list of most influential Latinos by the digital payments platform, WorldRemit.

The HDCAL and West Fork Choirs have been rehearsing separately for the festival and will only come together on Saturday, March 4th to run through the program, which Kuehner promises will be amazing. Calle Sur will hold a lobby concert at 6:30 p.m. before the concert begins. There is no admission charge for the March 4th 7 p.m.  event and everyone is invited to attend this great evening of musical entertainment. 

About We the Many

“We the Many" is a community-based artist-in-residency program hosted in three states at a time across the Midwest. We the Many supports existing and new creative community-building initiatives in a priority area of each state based on a racial, cultural and economic equity lens.

We the Many strives to build off the creative work already happening in communities and looks to culturally connected and embedded organizations to take programmatic and financial leadership throughout the program. The program begins with community conversations and visioning that leads to selecting an artist-in-residence, or a series of artists-in residence, in response to the needs, key themes, and assets identified in this process.

We the Many regularly brings together our participating community partners and lead artists from across the Midwest through virtual gatherings where ideas and processes are shared. Through storytelling and relationship-building, we learn from each other and celebrate the creative work happening in each of the We the Many communities across the region. Arts Midwest staff and other regional facilitators support and guide the conversation in these gatherings.”