Description
Corridos of the Semiquincentennial: Voices of Courage and Hope is a musical storytelling project developed by Juan Díes, of the Sones de México Ensemble, to honor eight national heroes through the creation and performance of eight new traditional Mexican corridos. Corridos are epic ballads and heroic tales that date back to the 1840s. They narrate stories and celebrate remarkable acts of courage and defiance from a folk perspective.
For this performance, Juan Díes has written corridos for Abraham Lincoln, Amelia Earhart, Dorothy Day, Joseph H. De Castro, Mary Fields, Muhammad Ali, Roberto Clemente, and Woody Guthrie—all heroes in the United States of America.
Díes is a folklorist, ethnomusicologist, and co-founder of the Grammy- and Latin Grammy-nominated Sones de México. He is also a 2026 recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts' National Heritage Fellowship--the nation's highest honor in the traditional arts.
For transcript and more information, visit https://www.loc.gov/item/video-13211/