¿Wappin? Stuff Danilo and Patricia are about to lay on us

August 18, 2017

**Danilo Pérez Jr., teacher. Photo by Eric Jackson**

Some acts that Danilo and Patricia will bring to Panama
Algunos actos que Danilo y Patricia traerán a Panamá

On Thursday morning, while US Vice President Mike Pence was elsewhere in town getting the dog and pony show, the real news was happening at the Danilo Pérez Foundation. There we heard details of two, or arguably three, events to come. First in time will be the Central American Percussion Festival on Saturday, August 26 in the Casco Viejo, with workshops all day and a concert at night, which ten bucks gets you admitted to all. Then, come next January 15 to 18, there will be the 15th Panama Jazz Festival, to be sure a bunch of concerts but more importantly a high level educational event at which some will be getting university credits, some will be auditioning to get into elite music education programs and a lot of youngsters will be getting insight and inspiration that will inform them wherever they go in life. Alongside the jazz festival is another educational event, the now annual Latin American gathering of music therapists. Actually, it’s expanding this time into dance and other arts and being dubbed a “performance therapy” event. Patricia Zarate Pérez is the director of the whole show and we may not get to hear her play the saxophone in January. After the press conference, however, she was happy to report progress on the Latin American front, with music therapy education now happening in Panama and a relationship with the Hospital del Niño as a part of it. There is a long way to go, but it represents a region becoming self-reliant about saving its own people, rather than importing all of its expertise in the field from other latitudes.