“Harmonies of the Andes” by Intillajata Andean Ensemble

Hello and welcome, everyone. Thank you so much for coming today to our penultimate performance that's in the Saks Museum performance series, all related to the current exhibition, which is called Kernels of Culture, Maze Around the World. My name is Neshka Pfeiffer, and I am the museum curator who organized this and also very gratefully met Eduardo a couple of years ago. So we could today. That's the group that's performing. They've been performing in St. Louis since 2022, and their name comes from the Quechua language, and it means land of the sun. And they will be using all authentic Andean instruments that you see in front up here on the stage, including the kenya and the zamponia, which are flutes, the bombo, which are drums, and chakchas, which are shakers and rattles. And we do have programs that actually list the performances. The Intiacta members will talk a little bit about what they're performing, but mostly we're going to be listening to beautiful music at the museum. And the program that they've created really does explore the cultural richness, the agricultural and seasonal richness of Andean music and culture. And lastly, I want to thank garden and museum donor Nancy Ridenour, who supported both the artwork commissions and the exhibition, as well as this performance series, so that we're able to interpret this amazing plant through poetry and music. Thank you all so much for coming today, and enjoy. And please welcome Intiacta. Thank you very much, everybody, for being here. That song is called Mama India, and it's a song, it's like a prayer to the Pachamama, which we call is the Mother Earth. It's sort of asking for water for the maize cultivars, in this case, like it's from Quechua origin. Our next song will be a mix of sikuris, which are some sort of like autochthonous music that is played with this instrument called sikurs, which are sort of like handpipes. And it is usually played in a large group of people playing the same like sikurs, but this time we just have one, so we were best. Sikurs. Thank you. The singing in that last song was in Aymara language. Our next song will be traditional wayno. Our next song is Sariripaya, which is a Tinku, the rhythm of Tinku, which is a ritual dance as well that it's from northern Potosi of Bolivia. So it's like an offering to Mother Earth as well for agriculture. Particularly this song talks about how this person leaves his original town to go to the city. This is a traditional wayno mix as well. They call it blue eyes in Spanish Ojos Azules. It's a very classic song from probably the 60s. It's saying blue eyes don't cry. We are people with blue eyes. I think it's because somebody got in love in South America. They were telling her, you know, blue eyes don't cry. I think it's because the Spaniards came to the heights of South America. They're the ones that brought the blue eyes, I think. They'll be different. Ojos azules, no llores, no llores ni te enamores. Haz cuando me vaya, cuando de medio ya no haya. Pasamos dos, tres días, te alegras y me alegras. Next song is Condor Pasa. You might have heard this song. Condor, yeah. Condor Pasa, yeah. Condor Pasa. Leño, creo que es. Yes, yeah. Next song is Leño Verde. Like green water. Leño. Leño Verde. It's a small piece of wood. It's a green stick. It gives the impression of a baby stick, like a leño verde because they come out green. But I'm sure there's other interpretations. Leño is the wood you go find when you're going to start the fire. And verde is green. So it's all gone. It's like green wood to light. This is a traditional Diablada dance, usually danced in folkloric carnivals from Bolivia. Diablada. Next song will be a different rhythm called Cueca. It's a rhythm that is broadly distributed toward South America, but each country has its own variant on it. This is a Bolivian Cueca. That's right. Cueca. Okay. Thank you very much, everybody, for being here. And now we'll play our last song, which is a mix of carnivalitos or guaraní polka. Guaraní is people from the lowlands, from South America. Yeah, it's very nice. We go a lot of places. Sorry.