MEXICO AT THE SMITHSONIAN: MUSICIANS FROM THE HOTLANDS. A continuation of Radio Bilingüe’s special coverage of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, this edition includes a conversation with Los Verdaderos Caporales de Apatzingán, an ensemble of big harp music from the hotlands of Tierra Caliente, Michoacán. This program also offers interviews with artisans and indigenous leaders from other regions of Mexico.

Guests: Don Ricardo Gutiérrez, Manuel Pérez, Isidoro Morfín and Leonel Mendoza, Los Verdaderos Caporales de Apatzingán, Michoacán, Mexico; Felipe Serio Chino, Secretary, Francisco González, Treasurer, and Eleuterio de la Cruz, President, Unión de Centros Ceremoniales, Wixarika Community in Jalisco, Durango and Nayarit, México; Lucio Ramón Aranda and Rogaciano Clemente García, Musicians, Chinelos de Atlatlahuacan, Morelos, Mexico.

MEXICO AT THE SMITHSONIAN: MANY VOICES, ONE NATION. Radio Bilingüe continues its special coverage of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, DC, which this year highlights a wide range of indigenous cultures from Mexico. Radio Bilingüe’s coverage also celebrates the 30th anniversary of its public broadcast service. This round table discussion includes traditional farmers and candy makers from Xochimilco, the musical group Grupo de Fandango de Artesa Los Quilamos, masters of the Oaxacan genres of sones and chilenas; and craftsmakers from the Comcaac community in Sonora.

LA HORA MIXTECA: LIVE FROM THE CAPITAL. Filemón López, host of La Hora Mixteca, continues to broadcast live from the nation’s capital as part of Radio Bilingüe’s special coverage of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. López explores arts and music from diverse indigenous communities of Oaxaca and other parts of Mexico, interviewing a musician from the southern coastal region of Oaxaca, who combines indigenous, African, and Spanish elements in his sones and chilenas, a wool weaver who continues a centuries-old family tradition of designing and weaving rugs with traditional Zapotec patterns, and an artisan who makes dolls out of corn-husks. This special edition of La Hora Mixteca also celebrates the 30th anniversary of Radio Bilingüe’s public broadcast service.

LA HORA MIXTECA: LIVE FROM WASHINGTON, D.C. As part of Radio Bilingüe’s special coverage of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Filemón López, host of La Hora Mixteca, broadcasts live from the nation’s capital. This program, in Mixtec and Spanish, reaches audiences across the border in simulcast with XETLA: “ La Voz de la Mixteca” in Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca, and other bilingual stations. In this hour, López interviews a dancer and musician from the Chinelos, carnivalesque dance troupes that mock the Spanish colonizers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a traditional candy-maker and a farmer from Xochimilco, where the ancient tradition of raised fields, or chinampas, separated by canals, is still alive, and a maker of mezcal, the traditional agave drink from Oaxaca.

SMITHSONIAN FOLKLIFE CONCERT: LOS TÍOS. This fourth concert in Radio Bilingüe’s special coverage of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, DC, presents the Mariachi Tradicional Los Tíos from El Manguito, a remote community in the Sierra Madre Occidental Mountains of Jalisco, who boast a son repertoire distinctive to this region where mariachi music has flourished for more than 150 years.

SMITHSONIAN FOLKLIFE CONCERT: ENCUENTRO DEL SON. This third hour of concerts broadcast from the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, DC, is a celebration of three different tradition of son in Mexico, harp ensemble music from the flat hotlands of Tierra Caliente in Michoacán, and son de Jalisco, played by Los Verdaderos Caporales de Apatzingán, and son jarocho from Veracruz, played by Son de Madera Trio.

SMITHSONIAN FOLKLIFE CONCERT: HAMAAC CAZÍIM. The second concert broadcast as part of Radio Bilingüe’s special coverage of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, DC, presents the group Hamaac Cazíim, from the Comcáac community on the Gulf of California in Sonora, who perform rock music with traditional lyrics sung in the Seri language. The goal is to engage members of the younger generation in the history and culture of their own people.

SMITHSONIAN FOLKLIFE CONCERT: CARDENCHEROS. On this, the third day of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, DC, Radio Bilingüe broadcasts four hours of musical concerts recorded live at the National Mall. This first hour highlights Los Cardencheros de Sapioriz, who are keeping alive a dramatic and powerful musical tradition known as canción cardenche, sung a capella by farmworkers in only one city in the northern Comarca Lagunera region. Even in Mexico, few people know about canción cardenche, now broadcast nationwide by Radio Bilingüe.

MEXICO AT THE SMITHSONIAN: SHARING CULTURES. This edition of Radio Bilingüe’s special coverage of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, DC, includes conveersations with makers of traditional textiles of Oaxaca, a dancer and a bead artisan from the state of Morelos, and a family of tequila-makers from Amatitán, Jalisco.

Guests: María Sosa, Joel Vicente y Marcelina Vicente, Textile artisants, Teotitlán de Valle, Oaxaca, Mexico; Alma Delia Reyes, Dancer, Atlatlahucan, Morelos, Mexico; Edmundo Saul Jahen, artesano que trabaja la chaquira, Chinelos de Morelos, Mexico; Javier Jiménez, Claudio Jiménez, and Javier Jiménez Jr., family of tequila-makers, “El Caballito Cerrero”, Amatitán, Jalisco, Mexico.

MEXICO AT THE SMITHSONIAN: DAY TWO. On the second day of Radio Bilingüe’s special coverage of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, DC, this edition includes conversations with artists from diverse indigenous cultures of Mexico. This program includes an interview with Los Cardencheros de Sapioriz, the last musical group to sing canto cardenche, a typical musical genre unique in all of Mexico, from the region of the Comarca Lagunera. The program also includes a conversation with mezcal makers, who talk about the traditional process of making the drink, and its different uses.