A saxophone solo by musician David Gomez swells to a sustained note, ending in applause and the rest of the band rejoining him.
He’s part of a stellar supporting band including Jackson Stokes and Jacob Somerscales, performing with Tonina Saputo for the final Under the Beams concert of the 2026 season.
Gomez performs under the name David Cultura. A multi-instrumentalist, he plays the flute, saxophone, guitar and others. He is the only one not from St. Louis originally. He’s from the Central American Republic of Panama, and often represents the “international” at performances.
“Especially, in a sense, because I'm from Panama,” he said. “There's not a lot of Panamanians in the States. Like, it's probably a small community. It's not like Puerto Ricans or Cubans or Salvadorans, you know. So it's always, I'm always like the one guy from Panama.”
Gomez represents the 40th different county to grace the stage, said Liz Mumford, producing executive director of the concert series.
“This season, we've had several different countries represented from Cuba to Venezuela, Panama, France and Spain and Morocco,” Mumford said. “We've had several different people from around the world just this season alone.”
She said this is important because New Harmony is a small rural town of about 800 people.
“We’re not very diverse. The town isn't diverse. We have a lot of interesting people who live here, but we are not culturally diverse, and it's important to get this in this area.”
Saputo’s music itself is diverse. She performs in a language not commonly heard — Sicilian. She opened with an acapella rendition of “Mi Votu e Mi Rivotu,” a haunting and soulful Sicilian love song.
“Sicilian is a vulnerable language right now,” Saputo said after the concert. “It's not a dying language, but it's categorized as a vulnerable language.”
UNESCO is the organization which categorized Sicilian as “vulnerable,” with only about 5 million speakers remaining.
Her parents are black and Sicilian, working these cultures into her music. She performs in three languages — Sicilian, English and Spanish.
Mumford said an emotional highlight for 2026 involved well-known Venezuelan musician Jorge Glem. He performed in January with Sam Reider — just as Venezuelans were being released from prison following the invasion by the US. He watched in real time as friends were released from prison.
“He was in tears,” Mumford said. “I was in tears, but he was glued to his phone the whole time he was here watching this unfold, this man who is a very well known musician in Venezuela.”
She said it's important to present different cultures to broaden people's minds, hearts and understanding. “That's been one of our main goals through these years.”
On this last concert of the series, Saputo included songs from previous albums, such as “Asking for a Friend” and “Calypso Blues” presented slightly differently with her live band. Several songs were collaborations with Gomez.
He lives in San Diego now. He said he doesn’t mind representing the “international” on the stage.
“It's a great opportunity to give people a first glance of what it feels to just have people from other parts,” he said. “A lot of people get scared of new stuff, but I think the more we have from everywhere, the better things get. So I'm just proof that, you know, beautiful things come from the outside too.”
They’re jet-setting to Germany and then Spain this week.
Support independent journalism today. You rely on WNIN to stay informed, and we depend on you to make our work possible. Give to grow our local reporting today. Donate