Free, Family-Friendly Activities
- Face painting
- Double dutch
- Candle holder decorating
- Maraca making
Shop
- Evi and Elsie's Art
- Casa Carbonell Boutique
- Rêve Bracelets
Eat
- Eatin Puertorican
- Sabor! by Charisse
Our pillar event celebrating Chicago's rich Latino history.
Our roots are our lifeline, our anchor to the past. This summer, through the theme of Raíces—or roots—Chicago Children's Choir presents Canto Latino, a program that will recognize and celebrate the indigenous and African influences on folk music from Colombia, Peru and Puerto Rico.
Canto Latino is an annual event that brings together thousands of students from across Chicago Children's Choir programs for a celebration of Chicago's proud Latin American heritage through song, story and dance.
Chicago Children's Choir strives to make music and performance accessible to anyone who wants it. To request accommodations, including priority seating, assistive listening devices or large print programs, please email info [at] ccchoir [dot] org.
Canto Latino: Raíces is presented as part of the Chicago Park District’s Night Out in the Parks series, supported by the Mayor’s Office and Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. Special thanks to the Peoples Gas Listo!+ community for Canto Latino volunteer support.
Pinqy Ring is a CCC alum and Puerto Rican rapper, artivist, speaker and Hip Hop educator born in Chicago. She is a proud U.S. Hip Hop Cultural Ambassador, traveling overseas to manage and facilitate diplomatic Hip Hop programming. Outside of music, Pinqy hosts workshops and talks with youth and universities—including Harvard Graduate School—nationwide. She has been published as an author in the second volume of Today’s Inspired Young Latina, and she currently plays Rosina in The Rosina Project, a hip hop iteration of the famed opera The Barber of Seville.
La Escuelita Bombera de Corazón was established in November 2009 by Ivelisse “Bombera de Corazón” Diaz. As an Afro- Puerto Rican diasporic performing arts school, La Escuelita is committed to the preservation of Bomba—Puerto Rico's oldest surviving music and dance form established by the island's African descendants. With a vision at the intersection of art education and social justice, La Escuelita Bombera De Corazon’s bombastic pedagogy forms in-person and virtual sessions into a batey of embodied learning, reciprocity, healing, and remembrance.
The Puerto Rican Arts Alliance invites diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds to learn and explore the beauty of Latin music with us. The Latin Music Project School Program consists of two community initiatives: one which is held at their Latin Music Project Center and a second which works in partnership with the Chicago Public Schools. Their programs provide youth and children of color the opportunity to access affordable music classes and be trained to become the next generation of professional musicians for classical and other pop music orchestras.
Co-directed by piano player Adrian Ruiz and percussionist Michael Rodríguez, The Ruiz Belvis Collective is an Afro-Latin Jazz performance ensemble born at Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center. The program incorporates young veterans of Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center’s youth Afro-Caribbean Jazz and Afro-Latin Percussion apprenticeships with guest appearances by the city’s top local and touring Latin music talent. SRBCC’s youth music programs have received recent recognition by the 2017 MacArthur International Connections Grant and the 2019 Arts and Culture Grant of The Field Foundation of Illinois.
There will be an array of activities and cuisines for you to enjoy all day at Canto Latino: Raíces. Reflecting authentic Latino culture, the festival will feature booths with art, jewelry and clothes for sale, as well as free activities for the whole family. And if you get hungry, you can purchase authentic Latin and Puerto Rican cuisine from one of our food vendors! Check out the full list of food and activities below.
Parking is available in Nobel Elementary’s parking lot which is accessible off of Karlov Ave. Street parking in the area is also available.
While there are plenty of activities and performances to keep you on your feet, we encourage you to bring a chair or a blanket if you'd like to sit down.
Chicago Children's Choir strives to make music and performance accessible to anyone who wants it. To request accommodations, including priority seating, assistive listening devices or large print programs, please email info [at] ccchoir [dot] org.