On June 25, 2022, the sounds of Puerto Rican plena, bomba, and Afro-Latin jazz echoed from the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, as dozens of musicians from Puerto Rico, New York, and California gathered to celebrate the life and the loves of Héctor René “Tito” Matos Otero.

The concert traced the many aesthetics of plena, an Afro-Puerto Rican folk music tradition, that Matos not only mastered but also helped influence before his sudden death early this year. In between sets, we premiered a series of short films, shot in Puerto Rico at La Casa de la Plena Tito Matos, featuring intimate moments and memories shared by Matos’s wife, Mariana Reyes Angleró, and youngest son, Marcelo Matos Otero.

Read more in the Festival Blog: https://s.si.edu/3fZxeQW

Producer: Julia L. Gutiérrez-Rivera
Camera: Mariana Núñez Lozada, Albert Tong, Charlie Weber
Editing: Cara Taylor, Albert Tong, Yijo Shen

© Smithsonian Institution, 2022