Ospa - Basque Music in the American West

LIVE BASQUE MUSIC TO FILL NATIONAL DISCOVERY CENTER JANUARY 17
Ospa to perform music of the Basque Country and Basque immigrant communities of the American West

American Prairie and Worlds of Music are pleased to announce an evening of traditional Basque music from the Basque Country and the Basque immigrant communities of the Mountain West at the National Discovery Center in Lewistown, located at 302 W. Main Street. On Friday, January 17 at 7:00 pm, former Wyoming poet laureate and Basque cultural expert David Romtvedt will join his band Ospa for “Ospa – Basque Music in the American West.” Admission is free; however, donations to American Prairie can be made online at https://americanprairie.org or at the door with your phone using a QR code.

Ospa, founded by David Romtvedt of Buffalo, Wyoming, performs and promotes traditional and contemporary Basque music and dance, and the mixed musical heritage of the Basque diaspora, which has a historical and continuing presence in parts of the American Mountain West. Regular members of Ospa include Romtvedt on vocals, flugelhorn, trikitixa, and accordian; Caitlin Belem on vocals, violin and saxophone; Kevin Carr on violin, viola, alboka, and pandero; and Daniel Steinberg on piano and flute.

During Ospa’s performance, Romtvedt teaches about Basque culture through songs, poems, and dance. He focuses on the significant and widespread, but not well-known, Basque cultural contributions to Wyoming, Montana, and other western states. Basque immigrants immigrated to the Mountain West during the early 20th century, where they worked as sheep herders and often invested in their own ranching operations. Some ranches in the West are still owned by the descendants of these early immigrants from Europe. Romtvedt also intertwines historical and current information about the Basque Country into the program.

To bring varied cultural experiences to the people of northern Wyoming and beyond, Romtvedt also founded Worlds of Music, a 501 (c) 3 nonprofit. Its programs have free public components, which often include performances and workshops at schools, libraries, and senior centers. The performance at the National Discovery Center on January 17 is a program of Worlds of Music.

About David Romtvedt

Romtvedt holds a BA in American Studies from Reeds College and an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He was a graduate fellow in Folklore and Ethnomusicology at the University of Texas – Austin. After serving in the Peace Corps in Zaïre, Rwanda, and Nicaragua, he worked as folk arts program manager for the Centrum Foundation. His latest book of poetry, An American Tao Te Ching, was published by LSU Press in 2021. His past books of poetry include The Tree of Gernika, Dilemmas of the Angels, Some Church, Certainty, How Many Horses, Moon, and the National Poetry Series Selection, A Flower Whose Name I Do Not Know. His works of fiction include Zelestina Urza in Outer Space, Crossing Wyoming, Letters from Mexico, and Free and Compulsory for All. Romtvedt’s nonfiction writings are included in Windmill: Essays from Four Mile Ranch. He has edited two anthologies: Deep West and Wyoming Fence Lines. His works have appeared in numerous magazines, including The American Poetry Review, The Paris Review, Georgia Review, The New York Times Magazine, Orion, Strings, Ploughshares, The Sun, Prairie Schooner, and Narrative. Romtvedt has also worked as a translator and, in 2020, the Center for Basque Studies at the University of Nevada published Gernikako arbola / The Tree of Gernika, Romtvedt’s translations of the nineteenth century Basque poet and troubadour Joxi Mari Iparragirre.

Romtvedt is a recipient of two NEA fellowships, the Pushcart Prize, and the Wyoming Governor’s Arts Award. He served as Wyoming’s poet laureate from 2003 to 2011 and continues to serve as professor emeritus of creative writing in the MFA program at the University of Wyoming. He also worked in the Artists-in-the-Schools programs in Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, Washington, and Nevada. In addition to his musical work with Ospa, Romtvedt also performed creole dance music and released a number of recordings with his band The Fireants.

The National Discovery Center is free and open to the public Thursday through Saturday from 10am to 4pm. Visit americanprairie.org/national-discovery-center to learn more, and follow American Prairie on Facebook for updates on upcoming events and programming.

About Worlds of Music
The Worlds of Music Foundation “promotes community development through awareness of and participation in projects involving the arts and humanities, with particular attention given to music. The Foundation seeks to recognize and honor the power of human thought and creativity as vehicles for individual and collective growth.” Moreover, they “seek to show the variety of artistic and humanistic responses people have made to their environments and times worldwide.” To learn more or to donate, visit https://wyomingworldsofmusic.com.