Hispanic in charge of choir at Disney park seeks to give the US a new face

The singer-songwriter Juan Cantú, director of the Voices of Liberty choir, created in 1982 with the inauguration of the EPCOT theme park, in the center of Floridaseeks to give this legendary musical group the face of the new USAwhich he emphasizes, includes Hispanics.

Of Mexican origin, the artist from the Disney entertainment park complex tells EFE that the faces and voices of “all who create this nation.”

“I am very interested in who the Americans of the future are, and Hispanics are part of it”the composer and arranger, the first full-time Hispanic in charge of this group that sings a cappella, emphasizes to EFE.

The group is made up of several vocalists, including a dozen Latinos, who rotate in groups of eight to sing traditional and patriotic American songs, folk and Disney themes in the park.

The show is presented seven times a day inside the American Adventure rotunda, one of the pavilions of the EPCOT park, which in addition to various attractions, including the new roller coaster “Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind”, It has representations from several countries, including Mexico, Japan, Morocco, Germany and Italy.

One of the Hispanic voices of “Voices of Liberty” is Puerto Rican Ashley Diane Rosa Coreano, 27, who tells EFE that she is a “great honor” belong to the choir, for which hundreds of applicants appear for auditions.

The classical, jazz and R&B singer began singing with her parents and two sisters in church in Puerto Rico and at 14 years old she moved to Florida.

Rosa Coreano joined the group in 2021, but in 2018 she had already participated in the Candelight Processional, one of the events that is also run by Voices of Liberty, at the America Gardens Theater.

For his part, Cantú, who says he is very proud of his Mexican heritage and the ethnic and racial variety of the choir, emphasizes that the idea is also to include in the future a repertoire with new songs that represent the evolution that the United States has had.

He notes that he is looking for new songs to add, that continue to carry a positive message of who Americans are.

Voices of Liberty began on the same day as the opening of the EPCOT theme park, October 1, 1982, and is presented in the American Adventure Pavilion, which has a dome that amplifies and purifies sound. Its founder was Derric Johnson, who arranged most of the songs that are still sung to this day.

“Music is very powerful, it affects our hearts, and it is emotion,” says Cantú about the emotional presentations that bring tears to the audience. He points out that the cast seeks to make park visitors forget about the difficulties they go through. “We are going to be like a band-aid,” Explain.