As the nearest state and biggest home to its diaspora, we here in Florida know there’s more to the music of Puerto Rico than just Bad Bunny. Still, we don’t know as much as we should. This swing-through by the preeminent Fabiola Méndez will make us more appropriately literate with performances that are musical expositions of Puerto Rico’s heritage.
Your six-string guitar is cute and all, but the cuatro is a 10-string beauty that’s the national instrument of Puerto Rico — and it’s something of which Méndez is both a champion and a master. With it, the Caguas native has been a lifelong torchbearer of Boricua culture all the way up into the ivory tower of music at Berklee, where she was the first graduate to play the cuatro as her principal instrument. Across four shows in two nights, expect Méndez to be a bridge of Latin folk and jazz that’s soulful, virtuosic and uniquely Puerto Rican.
6 p.m. & 9 p.m. Saturday, May 2, and 6 p.m. & 8 p.m. Sunday, May 3, Judson’s Live, drphillipscenter.org, $29-$47.
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