Ancient music celebrates heritage
by Betsy Page, reporter

    The Andes came to SE Campus last week when Visión Andina performed for students, faculty, staff and visitors in the Roberson Theater.

    As a part of Hispanic Heritage Month, SE student activities sponsored the performance of the Andean music ensemble from Bolivia.

    The performance opened with the reading of Oda a la Vida, a poem by the popular Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda. Ivan Miño, SE assistant professor of Spanish, read the poem in Spanish while Pert Durapau, SE director of student services, read the English translation.

    Following the poetry reading, Jacco Velarde and Visión Andina dedicated a traditional song to the memory of the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack.

    The music presented by Visión Andina is ancient folk music, in the Aymara language, that blends native Indian elements with European influences.

    Wearing hand-woven ponchos in vivid colors, the group played selections ranging from Carnaval de Valle, a happy, upbeat rhythm from the valleys and tropical areas of Bolivia, to Condor Pasa, a melancholic rhythm from the Incas of the high Andes.

    Listeners may have recognized Condor Pasa, made popular in 1970 by Simon and Garfunkel.

    The concert was accompanied by a slide show that offered the audience the opportunity to take a visual tour of South America.

    Audience participation was encouraged: listeners were invited to clap to the beat, and SE instructor Jose Gonzales volunteered to assist onstage in playing one of the wooden instruments.

    Many unique musical instruments, from the highlands of South America, were featured in the performance.

    Percussion instruments included a big drum called a bombo and chajchas, rattles made from goat hooves.

    Various wind instruments were played, including the quena, a vertical flute, and panpipes, sets of reeds tied together. The various panpipes are each named according to the scale of notes and the size of the instrument, ranging from the siku, the smallest, to the malta, the senka, and, finally, the largest, the toya.

    Stringed instruments in the performance included the traditional Spanish acoustic guitar and the charango. A charango is a small ten-stringed instrument originally crafted of armadillo shells. Most charangos are now made entirely of wood, like the one played by Velarde.

    The other members of the group, Juan Lima, Pedro Velasco and Edgar Cruz, joined Velarde in the TCC performance.

    Velarde, director of the group, formed Visión Andina-Nairapacha in 1982 to expose the great variety of music played along the mountain range that surrounds his native country, Bolivia.

    Velarde first came to the United States in 1974, when he was invited to play at the Braniff International Folkloric Festival in Dallas. He returned to Dallas after the festival as a part of an educational exchange program and decided to make Dallas his home in 1978.

    Velarde has a keen interest in educating the public about the music and culture of the Aztecs, Mayas and Incas. As a result, the group performs primarily at cultural and educational venues.

    Velarde also developed residency classes that allow children in Dallas public schools to learn the ancient art of making and playing Andean instruments, and eventually creating their own music. The intense classes meet two hours daily for three months. Special workshops are also taught for adults.

    Visión Andina recently returned from a tour in Scotland and is scheduled to tour in England in the spring of 2002, where they will release three of their albums.

    Fans can hear Visión Andina at the State Fair of Texas in Dallas next month. The group will perform Sunday, Oct. 7, at 1 p.m. and Sunday, Oct. 21, at 4 p.m.