Olmeca Will Perform a Free Community Concert at Van Wezel in June

The Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall and the Van Wezel Foundation today announced that the first-of-its-kind, year-long "virtual" residency with Latinx Hip-hop Artist, Kennedy Center Citizen and Scholar Olmeca will culminate with a free in-person live community performance on Saturday, June 12, 2021, at 11 a.m. EDT, outdoors on the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall's lawn.

The Van Wezel Artist residency pilot was part of a new initiative, called IDEA (inclusivity, diversity, equity and access), which is made possible due to the generous donors of the Van Wezel Foundation and the Gulf Coast Community Foundation. The initiative strives to teach and create with cultural appreciation in mind, believing that art can increase student empowerment, destroy negative stereotypes, promote innovation, and equip students with the necessary tools to become more aware of their own agency from a local and global perspective.

"We're proud to be using visual and performing arts representing diverse cultures to reach across divides to engage students, educators, families and community members," said Kelli Maldonado, director of Education and Community Engagement at the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall. "Olmeca was the perfect artist to kick off our IDEA initiative and we look forward to celebrating this opportunity with the entire community."

Olmeca' s powerful Hip-hop lyrics, backed by a live band featuring Latin American rhythms will get the whole family dancing during this free community performance. This in-person visit to Sarasota builds off the recent year-long "virtual" residency that launched during the pandemic, with the overall goal of bringing groups together to talk about essential topics and social issues, such as diversity, inclusion and seeing the world through a different lens.

Olmeca is a Hip-hop artist, producer and scholar who has been featured on BBC London, Complex Magazine, Noisey, Huffington Post, NPR, Democracy Now and CNN Latino. His music has been featured on various documentaries, including PBS' "Independence Lens," and "Two Americans" and a documentary about immigration in Arizona. He has written music for television shows, including "Sons of Anarchy," "CHANCE," and "The Mayans," and he is a teacher of underground Hip-hop in Los Angeles. Noisey Magazine calls Olmeca a "Shaman of the 21st Century."

"I look forward to joining the Sarasota community in person to share my art and experiences," said Olmeca. "I've enjoyed being a part of the launch of this important new IDEA initiative. We should all be working to identify ways in which we can celebrate our differences while also welcoming our similarities."