INSIDE+OUT: Amplified. Music Notes from the Hudson Valley

AMPLIFIED: Music Notes from the Hudson Valley | December 2025

By Melissa Esposito | December 4, 2025

Have you ever experienced the good fortune of walking through an event just as a band begins and finding the music so enthralling that whatever original destination you had in mind is now of lower importance than the performance right in front of you? That’s how I discovered Pulso de Barro. From the start of their show, their warm, percussive, worldly sound was both familiar, culling an ancestral rhythm rooted in centuries-old music and dance techniques, yet unique, echoing the folk traditions of the Son Jarocho style from Veracrúz, Mexico.

This month, we share insight into this vibrant, communal form of music and movement and highlight a local music venue that also relies upon community to make an unconventional model thrive.

Local Artist Spotlight: Pulso de Barro

Photo by Neil Segal

“We consider that Son Jarocho is not just a music genre, but a way of life and relating to the community; it is a ceremony-celebration that teaches one how to coexist in a healthy way with the different beings that surround us,” explains Mateo Cano, a multiinstrumentalist who performs this Mexican folk style as a part of music and dance collective Pulso de Barro. The name, translated to “pulse of the clay,” is a reference to the shared life force pulse that unites us.

This style of music originated in Mexico nearly 400 years ago, influenced by three overarching cultures during the Mexican colonial period: African (Yoruba and Bantú peoples), Andalusian culture (Arabs, Gypsies, and Sephardic Jews), and the Indigenous peoples who were already in the Mexican territory (Nahua, Mexihcah, Chinantla, Popoluca, and Tototnaco). “Son Jarocho creates a platform where anyone can sing and improvise about their environment; it is a tradition that explores the meaning of being a human in any given territory,” he says.

In the group, Cano plays the jarana tercera (an eight-stringed drum), the leona (a percussive bass instrument), and the requinto or guitarra de son, which produces traditional, melodic sounds. “I also dance in the tarima, which is the center and altar of the fandango; it is percussion played with the feet,” he explains. “I also play instruments from other parts of the world, like the drums and marimba de chonta from the Pacific coast of Colombia. I’ll play anything I can get my hands on.”

Cano is originally from Martinez de la Torre, Veracrúz, Mexico; he and singer Maria Puente Flores (originally from Mexico City) currently reside near Kingston. “My main instrument is the voice; I love to sing,” she says. “I first connected with my voice when I started rapping as a teenager in Mexico City. Now, I focus a lot on the poetry of the Son Jarocho tradition, which contains ancestral wisdom about the land and the human soul. To be able to sing these verses is a privilege, and it has to do with connecting with the feelings transmitted by the poetry and portraying that through the melody in the voice.”

Pulso de Barro hudson valley performers AMPLIFIED on INSIDE+OUT

She also plays the jarana and dances on the tarima. “The people in the tradition say that the jaranas, since they are carved from the cedar trees, learned how to sing like the birds when they were trees, and so the jarana is also the instrument that teaches me how to sing like the birds,” she says.

The group has been known to perform at local hotspots like Tilda’s Kitchen in Kingston, Colony Woodstock and Bearsville Theater in Woodstock, Opus 40 in Saugerties, and more. The live show is captivating, a melding of past and present through a modern generation’s channeled interpretation of ancestral music designed to bring joy, ease pain, and cultivate community.

“Now that I’ve been doing it throughout the years, I’ve come to realize that it is one of the ways in which I can give people a gift for their hearts,” Fuentes says. “They don’t have to understand all the words and the meaning, but it’s important for me to know that their bodies are receiving the feeling. In a world of crumbling systems, we need this healing; we need music that reminds us about our origin stories, that reminds us that our hearts are beating and that we are breathing, and therefore, we can dance and be kind to each other. The gift of the voice is a medicine, and it is not to be kept in my throat but to give away as long as I’m alive on this Earth.”

Find Pulso de Barro on Instagram at @pulsodebarro_

Stage & Scene: The Falcon

the recording barn space at The Falcon in Marlboro NY

When The Falcon opened in Marlboro in 2009, it introduced a business model that had never before been tried in this region: a live music venue that offered full-service dining before each show and didn’t charge tickets. Instead, all show admittance was by donation, with 100 percent of proceeds going to the performer. More than a decade later, the faith that late founder Tony Falco placed in patrons continues to pay off; not only do guests give what they can (and often more than the suggested donation of $30), but artists and audiences alike have come to know The Falcon as a leading venue for high-caliber jazz, blues, and indie acts in their 150-seat main hall, in addition to the more intimate downstairs Falcon Underground “pub beneath the club.”

Learn more at Live at the Falcon website or on Instagram @liveatthefalcon

Upcoming Music Events

Music is alive and thriving across the region. Here are just a handful of performances to catch in December 2025. Find your new favorite band (or venue) at these upcoming shows.

Saturday, Dec 1

Ethan Iverson: The Benny Goodman Sextet and Playfair Sonata
The Local, Saugerties NY

The Mammals (Album Release)
Bearsville Theater, Woodstock NY

Thursday, Dec 4

Cuban Songs from Trova to Guaracha: Pedro Luis Ferrer & Lena Ferrer
The Local, Saugerties NY

The Meraki Trio
The Falcon, Marlboro NY

Friday, Dec 5

Sun Not Yellow
The Falcon, Marlboro NY

Friday, Dec 5 + Saturday, Dec 6

Two days of What? band
The Lemon Squeeze, New Paltz NY

Saturday, Dec 6

Marky Ramone’s Holiday Blitzkrieg – Playing the Ramones Classics
Bearsville Theater, Woodstock NY