El Taller Latino Americano is honored to partner with La Iglesia de Sion to present Leon Gieco, as part of our 35 Years Taller series. Leon is supporting El Taller in a benefit concert, 24 years after he joined David Byrne & Pete Seeger to support the organization when faced with another eviction.
Leon Gieco, with songs like Dylan and anthemic ballads like Springsteen, is a folk rock performer and composer, known for intermixing Argentinian folk tunes with politically and socially charged, poetic lyrics, which brought him into direct confrontation with the Argentinian government during the 80s and forced his move to Los Angeles for a year. Leon's music continues to be popular all over the Spanish-speaking world and in folk, and world music scenes worldwide; he needs only take out his guitar for thousands of peopleto sing along with him.
In recent years, Leon has taken up the cause of disabled performers. In June 2014, a documentary "Mundo Alas" (World Wings) which portrays his collaborations with the disabled, will be screened at the United Nations' Forum on Disability and Development. El Taller will award Leon with the Chaski, in recognition of his music, his activism and his work promoting voices beyond his own.
Leon has a long and ongoing relationship with El Taller and its founder, Bernardo Palombo. In 1984 Bernardo introduced Leon to Pete Seeger at a festival in Ecuador. Leon subsequently invited Pete to perform at a concert in Argentina, and in 1990, Leon performed, along with Pete and David Byrne, Guantanamera, Solo Le Pido a Dios, among others. After hearing a group of El Taller students sing one of Bernardo's songs, Cuida El Agua," Leon has made it part of his repertory, recently performing the song at a concert in Buenos Aires dedicated to the Greenpeace activists imprisoned in Russia.
