For more than two decades, José Luis Obando Borja brought the roughly 350-year story of salsa to museums, universities, cathedrals, libraries and schools — a scholarly lecture grounded in Urban Ethnomusicology, illustrated by a live ensemble. We carry that work forward, and your institution can host it.
Every program pairs scholarship with live performance. The shape adapts to your space, your audience and the depth you’re looking for.
The signature format. A narrated journey through the roughly 350-year evolution of salsa, illustrated in real time by a live ensemble — drums, voice and the full Afro-Caribbean percussion family played, not recorded.
A close study of the Afro-Native-Antillean instruments that pertain to salsa — congas, timbales, bomba drums, panderetas, güiro, cuatro — their raw materials, manufacture and the traditions they carry, in the spirit of the Met's documented acquisitions.
A guided screening drawn from the archive of films José advised on for the Met — encompassing Mexican, Guatemalan, Afro-Ecuadorian, Dominican, Puerto Rican and Nuyorican traditions — followed by a moderated conversation.
A performance-forward evening for larger halls and cathedrals, where the ensemble takes the lead and the scholarship frames the music between numbers — as presented at the Cathedral of St. Patrick and the Apollo.
A session built for educators: how to teach salsa as an interdisciplinary lens on geography, history, theology and more, with source material and approaches faculty can carry into their own classrooms.
A sequenced program for an institution that wants depth — several visits tracing salsa's roots, regional traditions and instruments across a term, scaled to the audience and level.
The same body of scholarship has been presented at every educational level. We tune the language, length and depth to the room — whether it’s a school assembly or a post-graduate workshop for educators.
An engaging first encounter with rhythm, instruments and the geography of the music — salsa as a doorway into history and culture for younger students.
A deeper interdisciplinary treatment connecting the music to history, migration and the social sciences, suited to humanities and arts curricula.
University-level lecture-demonstrations grounded in Urban Ethnomusicology, presented at institutions from Juilliard to Harvard.
Advanced study of Afro-Caribbean syncretisms, performance practice and the ethnographic record for music, anthropology and area-studies programs.
Workshops for educators and curators — the most advanced tier — on teaching and documenting salsa as living cultural heritage.
Programs for general museum, library and concert audiences of every age, presented across the country since 1998.
A lecture-demonstration is never only about music. José built each program to draw on the social sciences and the humanities — the disciplines that explain where this music came from and why it matters.
Booking a program brings a museum-grade presentation to your audience — scholarship, live music and instruments, scaled to your setting.
Conservatory-, folkloric- and street-trained musicians — among them Grammy honorees — performing the music as it is taught, not played from a recording.
Programs grounded in Urban Ethnomusicology and decades of museum-level research into salsa's African, Taíno and Spanish roots.
Demonstration of the Afro-Native-Antillean instruments of salsa, with the documentary context behind each one.
Content and length tuned to the level and setting — from a lower-school assembly to a post-graduate faculty workshop or a full concert hall.
Connections to history, geography, theology, anthropology and the arts that map onto existing courses and museum themes.
The same body of work presented since 1998 at the Met, El Museo del Barrio, the Apollo, Juilliard, Harvard and beyond.
Tell us about your audience and the kind of program you have in mind, and we’ll be in touch to plan the details. Museums, universities, libraries, cathedrals and schools all welcome.