Featuring Grammy-award winning vocalist Sylvia McNair, and the stellar performances of Indiana University Jacobs School of Music jazz faculty Tom Walsh, Jeremy Allen and Luke Gillespie, Romance takes us through the soulful and intoxicating experience of Latin American love songs. Romance conjures images of platonic, playful, and contented love along with stories of passion, betrayal, and heartache, told through the rhythms of bossa nova, bolero and cha cha cha from Brazil, Cuba, and Mexico. Produced by IU’s Latin American Music Center, with participation by the young leaders of its Latin American Popular Music Ensemble under the direction of Guido Sánchez-Portuguez, Romance includes famous songs by Antonio Carlos Jobim, Agustín Lara, and Consuelo Velásquez among several other classics of the genre. Singing in English, Portuguese, and Spanish, Sylvia McNair shows us a new facet of her vocal virtuosity, and joins the ranks of famous American singers like Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole and Linda Ronstadt in their embrace of the great Latin love songs.

Romance is an IUMusic-LAMC production from the Indiana Jacobs School of Music.