Carnaval de Barranquilla en Miami – a tribute to Wilfrido Vargas, Sergio Vargas, and Milly Quezada. Directed by associate professor Ricardo Monzon, he and the Berklee Merengue Orchestra made the stage come alive as they got the crowd on their feet.

A group of 16 Berklee students, one alumnus, and two faculty members traveled to Miami for the 2011 O/E Arts and Culture Foundation’s Carnaval de Barranquilla en Miami, the second Berklee group to perform at Carnaval. The music covered was arranged by faculty members Ricardo Monzon and Bernando Hernandez, as well as students performing in the ensemble as a tribute to influential merengue musicians Milly Quezada, Sergio Vargas, and Wilfrido Vargas. Joining the audience and stage was in fact Milly Quezada, invigorating the celebration. This was Berklee’s first concert dedicated solely to merengue. The concert took place on Friday, March 11, at 8:00 p.m. at the Dade County Auditorium in Miami and all proceeds from tickets benefited a Barranquilla foundation called Fútbol con Corazón, seeking social transformation through the values of sportsmanship. Since 2007, the “Carnaval de Barranquilla en Miami” has been successfully produced, organized and developed by O/E Arts and Culture, a foundation with the objective of promoting cultural integration between the United States and Latin America through showcases of art and culture.

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