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Yaki Kandru Ensemble (Colombia)
Jorge Lopez Palacio - Sylvie Blasco
Wora,
Cantata of the Morning Star
Traditional
Amerindian Songs
The
Colombian anthropologist and singer
Jorge Lopez Palacio created the Yaki
Kandru Ensemble in 1970 at the National
University of Bogotá.
The group is dedicated to the study
and the dissemination of Amerindian
music and culture.
The Ensemble is
active on many levels of Colombian
cultural life: from the great theatres
of Bogotá to
the Indian communities at the dawn
of their struggle for human rights;
from universities to local neighbourhoods.
They have given hundreds of concerts
and made many recordings. For ten years,
Jorge Lopez Palacio was professor of
voice technique at the National School
of Dramatic Arts in Bogotá.
Resident in France since 1982, he teaches
anthropology of the voice at the Centre
Feldenkrais-Cristoph Berger in Basel
and at the Ateliers d’Ethnomusicologie
in Geneva . He directs the workshop ‘Les
Chemins de la Voix ’ for theatre
groups and vocal ensembles.
Sylvie
Blasco ,
musician and member of Yaki Kandru
since 1994, studies and interprets
the repertoire of songs of American
Indian women and participates in the
creation of each work undertaken by
the group. Her experience in voice
and music underpins her research on
movement.
Yaki Kandru came
into being in 1994, when Jorge Lopez
Palacio, then in exile in France ,
was joined by Sylvie Blasco from the
world of dance.
They then built up
a repertoire of Inuit, Yaqui, Yecuana,
Noanama and Ona music and songs, before
creating Wora,
Cantata of the Morning Star. These
were the first steps towards a composition
using Amerindian vocal techniques and
musical forms where, while retaining
the original use of the instruments,
they tread a path between traditional
song and composition at the frontier
of contemporary music.
This piece,
presented among others on Radio Suisse
in Berne and at the Festival Les 38ème
Rugissants, was filmed by L. Lemoine
and G. Dero for Huit Production and
the Mezzo channel.
The work, Firizai
ou La
Voix des Sources,
was written at the end of 2002 for
the Festival Voix Sacrées
du Monde in Lausanne . It was a work
dedicated to the a capella
songs of the Orinoco plains, the
Amazon forests and to Tierra del
Fuego . With the ensembles Mora Vocis
and Zellig, Yaki Kandru participated
in Passeur d’Eau,
a composition by Thierry Pécou
based on a text by Christine Mananzar.
It was presented at the Abbaye de
Sylvanès in August 2004, and
again at the Festival Musica in Strasbourg
.
Wora,
Cantata of the Morning Star
The
Wora is a clay pot, an earthernware
womb giving birth to humanity. Fertilised
by the breath of two bamboo pipes,
Wora takes us on an astonishing musical
journey. Wora vibrates and in answer,
we hear the melodic flights of the
giant flutes, yapurutus, the rumblings
of the rainmakers, the crystalline
sound of the shells, the fearful voice
of the scrapers, the roaring of the
calabash horns. This organic music
seems to surge forth from the earth.
Both the traditional Amerindian melodies
(from Alaska , Mexico and the forests
of Colombia and Venezuela ) and the
compositions of Jorge López
Palacio at the very frontier of contemporary
music form the structure of this cantata
which is amazing for ears and eyes.
From Alaska to Tierra del Fuego , the
Amerindian peoples all respond to the
same essential spirit of the sacred.
The forces of Nature, where Life and
Death are intimately entwined, respect
for the great cosmic equilibrium, the
constant harmony between all things,
be they mineral, plant, animal or indeed
human; all are woven together as a
living thread in our sacred universe,
so often forgotten in modern times.
It’s
to this sacred place that Wora takes
us in a musical prayer, an ode to Mother
Nature and her poetry.
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