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Colleen Kattau and Dos XX will Honor Women and Latin Culture

4 years ago

Colleen Kattau will make sure that her Sunday, March 15 concert in the Carman Community Room will span the themes of Women’s History Month and Latin Rhythms Series.

Her band Dos XX and songs from her new album Besos Kisses will help the singer, songwriter and strings player make sure of that.

Accompanied by Jane Zell on lead guitar, Connie Walter on percussion and Mike Brandt on bass, Kattau will dive into songs in a style she playfully terms Gringo Latino. “I’m making up a new genre,” she said during a recent phone interview. “We honor women and Latin culture.”

The songs from her new album indeed pay honor to a number of women important in Kattau’s local and world viewpoint. Dangerous Women is a nod to Sally Doesch Wagner, a Central New York historian who worked to spotlight woman’s suffrage, including the achievements of Matilda Joslyn Gage; Her Voice is a River is an ode to Onondaga clan mother Audrey Shenandoah, written after interviews with her daughter Jeanne and granddaughter Awhenjiosta.

And then there’s the memory of her great friend, Jolie Christine Rickman, who teamed with Kattau to bring breadth and depth to the Central New York music and activism scene with songwriting, live performances, recording and peaceful actions before passing away from cancer at the age of 34 in 2005.

“Her voice, the beauty of it, it’s etched in my ear,” Kattau said of Rickman, who earned a graduate degree at Syracuse University. “She was a pivotal person in my life. Her optimism and presence kept me going.”

Here is a video from Samba Laranja’s Feb. 17 performance in the Carman Community Room.

Hear Kattau’s Besos Kisses on YouTube.