The Program
¡Welcome!
Peruvian culture came about from the initial blending of Andean, Spanish, and African cultures, and out of that encounter developed a diversity of expressions which encompass different fields, the most significant being Peruvian music and dances.
Topics
Through hands-on workshops, Opus Lima V2 purposes to exhibit the richness and many-faceted nature of these expressions. We have, therefore, prepared a special program that includes different aspects of that diversity, dividing the program into three teaching-learning sections:
- Traditional Peruvian music and dances
- Baroque music from Peru’s viceroyal period
- Peruvian musical instruments
Schedule
We have planned two sessions during 2011, each lasting two full weeks:
1st: June 11 – 26
2nd: Oct. 15 – 30
For reservations and/or more information, please write us using the form provided or contact us at info@opuslima.com.
For reservations and/or more information, please write us using the form provided or contact us at info@opuslima.com.
Traditional Peruvian Music and Dances
We will guide our students through Peru’s most important musical genres. Workshops are hands on, and participating with us in this section will be the Jose Maria Arguedas National Folklore School.
A summary
For centuries, music has been tightly linked to dance in all community activities or rituals. Every dance, mask, and costume was an important means of expression. During the Incan Empire, the Incas used the word “taki” when making reference to song and dance since both activities were indivisible from each other.
There are many genres of music and dance in Peru, and we can classify them according to their geographical setting: Peruvian coast, highlands, or Amazon. Thus, we have:
On the coast:
Marinera, Tondero, Festejo, Lando, Zapateo
In the highlands:
Huaynos, Danza de Tijeras (Scissors Dance), Carnaval, La Diablada
In the Amazon:
Where music and dance imitate nature, Danza de la Boa (Dance of the Boa), Pistha, Amuesha
Baroque music from Peru’s viceroyal period
We will explore Baroque music in Peru, especially as it reached its peak during the viceroyal period. Jose Quezada Macchiavello, teacher and master musician and scholar, and indisputable authority on the matter, will be the lecturer during this session. Working alongside us will also be the prestigious Lima Triumphante Orchestra, which has rescued the legacy of Peruvian Baroque music in all its glory.
Peruvian Baroque
At the end of the 17th century, Baroque music reached the shores of Peru, and during that time period, the predominant form was the villancico. They were accompanied by basso continuo on organ or harp with a cello. These forms were written for all church related functions and festivals, initially composed by foreign musicians but later by Peruvian mestizo priests.
One of the foreigners who landed in Peru was the Spaniard Tomas de Torrejon y Velasco, who composed the first known opera in the Americas, La Purpura de la Rosa (Blood of the Rose), the lyrics of which were written by Calderon de la Barca. It opened in Lima in 1701.
1706, in the city of Huacho, was the year in which one of the most famous Baroque composers from the region was born: Jose de Orejon y Aparicio. His works, Neapolitan in influence, demonstrate a complete command of the period’s compositional technique.
Towards the middle and end of the 18th century, theater music became popular. This consisted in sketches jazzed up with popular songs and rhythms. It was during the latter years of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th that Peru’s viceroyal Baroque music began to decline.
Peruvian musical instruments
Opus Lima V2 will also feature a series of workshops devoted to the history and development of different musical instruments, whose Andean and African roots grant to them their unique character.
Right now, we can classify over 1000 dances and a huge number of musical genres which could not be appreciated if we did not have the never ending list of Peruvian string, percussion, and wind instruments. Here are the most important:
Charango
A string instrument inspired by the classical guitar. It is smaller in size and has more strings (12) than the instrument it is modeled after.
Quena
The most widely used wind instrument in Peru. Originating during the Pre-Hispanic era, it is made of bamboo, wood, bone, or plastic, and an elliptical notch is cut into one end for a mouthpiece.
Peruvian cajon
An Afro-Peruvian percussion instrument, mainly used in the different coastal musical varieties associated with the Marinera (dance) and generally used in musica criolla (genre based in Lima) and musica negra (whose roots are in African rhythms).
Andean harp
Of Western origins, it has been widely accepted in Peru, particularly in the highlands where its versatility enables the performer to play treble variations.
Zampoña
Member of the pan pipe family. It is a series of differently sized bamboo tubes tied together with yarn and intertwined in such a way as to create one or two rows.
