A product of rural Ecuador, Vicente López was born with a great musical gift, says his daughter, Patricia López de Jaramillo. (She has taught at Bates this academic year and is a founder and the academic director at the Andean Center for Latin American Studies in Quito, Ecuador.)

Now 75 years old, López earned a degree in piano from the National Conservatory of Music at the Central University of Ecuador. He taught music and served as a choral director early in his career, and continued to perform and compose even after leaving professional music.

López’s concert at Bates will combine his own compositions with popular songs, a little Beethoven and Albeniz, and traditional music of Ecuador, which will constitute the program’s second half. That music explores such typical rhythms as the sanjuanito and the pasillo, which shows a strong indigenous Andean influence. López’s own compositions include tributes to his wife and oldest son, who are deceased.

López makes music “with all his heart,” says his daughter. For her, his music conjures up a world of associations beyond the purely musical. “I just feel transported to all my ancestors, to all my background,” she says. “I feel like I am connected to so much life many, many years before my Dad.”

For more information about the performance, please call 207-786-6135.

Pianist John Kramer ’95 performs Frederic Rzewski’s “The People United Will Never Be Defeated!”, a 1978 composition based on a Chilean protest song at 8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 9 in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St. The concert is free and open to the public.

Nearly an hour long, “The People United” is the best-known composition by Rzewski, a Massachusetts native now residing in Belgium. The piece consists of 36 variations on a song of the same title based on a popular chant by Sergio Ortega.

Kramer explains that despite its length and the composer’s avant-garde credentials, the piece is highly accessible — passionate, well-constructed and embracing a striking range of musical styles. That stylistic variety sends a political message too, Kramer adds, symbolizing a diverse humanity whose ultimate unity is represented by a final return to Ortega’s memorable tune.

A member of the Bates class of 1995, Kramer lives in Quincy, Mass. In addition to performing, he teaches music at the South Shore Conservancy of Music and is music director for the Lexington United Methodist Church. He holds advanced degrees in music from the University of Iowa.

For more information about the concert, please call 207-786-6135.