This interest session presents a choral journey through the Americas, exploring how twentieth-century Uruguayan music reflects the impact of Afro-descendant resilience and cultural encounter. The program highlights works shaped by syncretism, forced displacement, and communal survival. Through profound historical analysis and performance excerpts, participants will gain tools for programming and teaching choral literature that honors marginalized voices, engaging singers and audiences in the complex histories of identity and collective memory that define the region in the modern era.
Voices of the Americas: Choral Music and Resilience
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Trent Brown
Trent R. Brown is director of choirs and professor of music at Florida Gulf Coast University. He is the founder and artistic director of Joyful & Triumphant, an annual holiday concert that reaches thousands of viewers in person and through PBS affiliate broadcast. Recent conducting engagements include Wisconsin SATB All-State (2026); guest conductor for Coro Nacional del Perú in Lima, Perú (2025, 2026); Florida All-State TTBB choir (2025); Brahms Ein deutsches Requiem with FGCU Choirs and Orchestra (2025); Haydn Lord Nelson Mass with Choral Artistry (2025); and festival choirs in Montevideo and Mercedes, Uruguay (2024). Dr. Brown previously taught public high school in Minnesota and Wisconsin. He holds degrees from The University of Arizona (DMA), University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (MM), and University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire (BME).
Rodrigo Faguaga
Rodrigo Faguaga is a choir director and arranger. He studied at EUM with Francisco Simaldoni. In 2011 he founded Rapsodia, performing with The Rolling Stones and at Teatro Solís. Since 2012 he has directed Coro La Experimental as director and arranger, recording two albums. In 2017 he represented Uruguay in ACDA's International Conductors Exchange Program and led workshops across America and Europe. In 2019 he founded Centro Integral Coral Experimental (CICE), fusing choral music with performing arts. The center now manages eight groups. In 2022 he cocreated the "Mirlo, cantos nómades" audiovisual project. Currently he serves as general director of CICE and conducts La Experimental, Mirlo, and the "Voces del Origen" Coral Project in Soriano, which includes a training course for future choral leaders.
Florida Gulf Coast University Chamber Choir
Florida Gulf Coast University
The Chamber Choir is a mixed, auditioned ensemble open to all students regardless of major at Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU). Recognized for their remarkable versatility, the ensemble performs choral music from the Renaissance to newly commissioned works including recent premieres by Jēkabs Jančevskis, Julio Morales, and Z. Randall Stroope. As the university's flagship choral ensemble, they perform multiple concerts in the community and around the state in outreach efforts. The choir performs internationally every three years, including trips to Croatia/Slovenia (2026), France/Spain (2023), Rome (2020), the Baltic States (2017), and Austria and the Czech Republic (2014).
The Florida Gulf Coast University Chamber Choir will serve as a demonstration choir for an interest session at the 2027 National Conference.
