PRSUN Radio chats with Aurora Flores of Zon del Barrio

IMG_3245
Originally uploaded by clarisel.

Aurora Flores performs with her group Zon del Barrio in East Harlem last month.

Tune in at 9 p.m. tomorrow, Wednesday, Feb. 4, to www.blogtalkradio.com/prsunradio. Aurora Flores is the guest on PRSUN Radio, a 15-minute talk show focusing on themes related to Puerto Ricans and the diaspora. If you can't listen in tomorrow night, the show will be archived and will be available at www.blogtalkradio.com/prsunradio.

Here is Flores' bio as posted at her Zon del Barrio site:

Bandleader, composer, Lead and Coro Vocals

Considered a 21st century Renaissance woman, Aurora Flores is a musician, writer, producer and activist. Raised in a musical family where her grandfather played plena and aguilnaldos on the accordion, her father wrote songs, her mother sang while her brother plays percussion she started as a classical musician playing violin, guitar and bass while singing in the school and church chorus before recording her first album at 15 with the Manhattan Borough Wide Orchestra as head of the bass section while studying bass privately with Frederic Zimmerman.

She went on to become the first Latina editor of Latin New York Magazine in 1974 later becoming the first female music correspondent for Billboard Magazine from 1976 to 1978. During this time she sang in the bands of Cortijo & Maelo y sus Cachimbos as well as a few local groups.

She attended the Columbia School of Journalism before breaking into mainstream journalism, writing and reporting news for television, radio and print before starting a family and her own public relations agency, Aurora Communications, Inc in 1987.

With thousands of articles to her name, Aurora Flores organized her own septet in tribute to the music of Rafael Cortijo and Ismael Rivera called Zon del Barrio featuring some of her own original compositions.

Flores continues to write for various mainstream newspapers and magazines while teaching a Latin music history course and lecturing on the roots of the music.

A cultural consultant, she has written bilingual tunes for the hit children's show, Dora, the Explorer and conducts tours of East Harlem in a cultural, political and socio/economic content. She can be seen singing alongside Tito Puente in the Edward James Olmos Docudrama, Americanos, Latino Life in the U.S.; lecturing in the Bravo documentary, Palladium: When Mambo Was King and in the Smithsonian film accompanying the traveling exhibit: Latin-jazz, La Combinación Perfecta. Flores is currently working on a book based on her experiences in the Latino New York world.
For more information on Zon del Barrio, go to www.zondelbarrio.com.

Remember 9 p.m. tomorrow www.blogtalkradio.com/prsunradio.

(photo by Clarisel Gonzalez)

Community calendar

Tribute to José ‘Chegui’ Torres (May 3, 1936-January 19, 2009)

1965 LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION MEMORIAL- TRIBUTE

7 p.m., Saturday, February 7 (Doors open at 6:30 p.m.)

FREE with ticket

Hostos Community College
450 Grand Concourse, the Bronx
(718) 518-4455

Music by Grupo Folklorico de Ponce and Las Princesas del Caribe

Organized by Ponce Laspina of Juan Laporte's Boxing Gym, Julio Pabon of Latino Sports and Ramon Jimenez of Friends of the South Bronx

Community calendar

The Puerto Rican Photographic Society, NYC chapter, is having its first meeting at 6 p.m., Thursday, February 12, Cemi Underground in East Harlem. We will discuss our local society's agenda for the year.

To join The Puerto Rican Photographic Society's global group on Facebook, go to
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=95958105537&ref=mf

For more information on the NYC chapter, go to our Google group at
http://groups.google.com/group/prphotographicsociety

While this photo group highlights Puerto Rican photographers, it is open to any photographer interested in photography and/or Puerto Rican culture. Membership is free.

Again, our February 12 meeting will be at 6 p.m. at Cemi Underground, 1799 Lexington Avenue @ 112th Street.

Clarisel Gonzalez
administrator, NYC chapter, The Puerto Rican Photographic Society

Sagrado Corazon

Sagrado Corazon
Originally uploaded by carlos aviles.

Tonight's featured shot from the Puerto Rico Sun photo group is by carlos aviles. It was taken at a church in San German, PR.

Boricuation Radio to interview Linda Nieves-Powell on MTV's 'True Life' and more

Boricua Entrepreneur




Website is www.boricuationradio.com .
The show airs on www.esp51.com.
3-6 p.m.
Call in 718 384 6813/Web Cam/Live Chat
(Click on image for larger text.)

Linda Nieves Powell, author of the book Free Style, is an outspoken advocate against the negative portrayal of Puerto Rican New Yorkers on MTV, which recently aired a new episode of their popular "True Life" series entitled "I'm a Nuyorican."

"Unfortunately, MTV chose to highlight three young people who embrace and embody all of the most negative and damaging stereotypes of the Nuyorican community," writes Nieves-Powell on her Facebook page.

She will speak on her gripe with MTV, her book, her Latino Flavored Productions as well as her other projects today on Boricuation Radio. Tune in.

By the way, there is an online petition circulating related to the MTV show.

Go to this link for more information

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/nuyoricans-against-mtv-true-life.html