Our First Children Book, 

From Across the Street - Del otro lado de la calle, is OUT!!!!

                             

     

Wanda got inspired by my composition "From Across the Street" and created a character, Pati, for our recently published book of the same title. In this book, Pati, an American-Dominican immigrant, serves as the conduit to knowledge about Palos music, one of the most predominant genres of the the Dominican Republic.  The term Palos refers to a particular type of folk music, but it is also used as an umbrella term for many other musical expressions. In the book we used the term as the latter, which allowed us to fuse different types of folk musics and and their instrumentations together. 

The story reflects on some of our own experiences growing up in the Dominican Republic.

The flipbook was published by fflat-books.com and when you buy it you get, not only a PDF version but, all the sounds of the instruments, ensembles, narrations, etc. Take advantage of the release price for the rest of the month. 

This process was a family endeavor. Wanda and Astrid recorded the voiceovers in Spanish and English, respectively; I recorded and mixed the audio at our home studio. The percussion instruments were recorded in Dominican Republic at Leo Pimentel's studio, by the one and only Edis Sanchez (el Guru). Edis is an anthropologist and one of the most prominent percussionists of Dominican folk music.

For the end of the book, I took the pre-recorded voices from the original recording of the music (from the album Back Home) and layered all the new percussion recordings on top. 

The book comes in English and Spanish. You can either read/listen to the entire book in one language or flip languages from any page. Super cool!!!

This was a labor or love that also serves as a way to disseminate the knowledge of our Dominican heritage to a new audience. I hope you guys and gals out there will embrace it and show it to the kids around you. 

Blessings to all of you.

Peace,

S