A public art project is bringing back the sounds of Ybor City. Ybor Speaks is a public art project created to celebrate the immigrant experience in Ybor City. The sound instillation in Centennial Park welcomes you to Ybor City through immersive soundscapes and audio vignettes, and histories and memoirs read aloud. You can hear audio from the boom town of the 1890s through the creative revival of the 1980s.
Related: FMoPA moving to Ybor in 2023
The City of Tampa, Division of Arts & Cultural Affairs commissioned playwright Sheila Cowley and sound designer Matt Cowley to create the sound installation. The Cowleys included local talent from the Spanish Lyric Theatre, faculty and students from the University of South Florida School of Theatre and Dance, stage and screen actors based in Tampa Bay, and many residents. Original music was composed by La Lucha.
What is Ybor Speaks?
Ybor Speaks in-person experience at Centennial Park takes you back in time through soundscapes played on speakers at the park. These audio adventures evoke life in Ybor City from the musical calls of street vendors and horse-drawn carriages to busy streetcars and WWII shipyards, from a modern highway slicing through the streets to the festive Artists and Writers Ball.
Listen to one of the soundscapes here! This is from 1920’s Ybor City.
You’ll hear the languages of Ybor then and now, including Spanish, Italian, Yiddish, Russian, Romanian, English and Vietnamese. Soundscapes play at the top of each hour from 7 a.m. – 5 p.m., every day except Saturday. The soundscapes run for 20 minutes, followed by music.
Can’t make it to Centennial Park? Here is the complete list of soundscapes.