Runa Pura performs Saturday and Sunday
at the Atherton Performing Arts Studio.
Runa Pura delivers
By Tim Ryan
Andean sound
Star-BulletinThere is something haunting, almost other worldly about the traditional folk music of the central Andean countries of Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, a region considered to be among the richest in the world with regard to the variety of music and folklore traditions.
Long before the Spanish conquest, and even before the Incas, the diverse native cultures there had rich musical traditions and today is a mixture of native, Spanish and African musical elements.
Ancient tombs have yielded flutes, trumpets, drums and other musical artifacts; many ceramic jars found in ancient tombs depict musical instruments being used in various contexts, including shamanism, hunting and dancing.
Runa Pura, a quartet of indigenous Ecuadorian musicians, returns to Hawaii after a sold-out May performance for two concerts -- tomorrow and Sunday -- at the Atherton Performing Arts Studio at Hawaii Public Radio.
Runa Pura, which means pure race, are Joaquin Campo, Jaime Campo, Alonzo Yamberla, and Manuel Perugachi.
Runa Pura's music represents the traditional folk music of the Andes, where musicians play wind instruments such as the kena and zamponia, made from bamboo-like reeds, stringed instruments such as the guitar, charango and mandolin, and panpipe.
The panpipe is an end-blown tubular aerophone set without finger holes, consisting of numerous closed pipes of cane rafted together in two halves.
Panpipes from Peru and Bolivia were constructed from cane, clay and stone.
The kena is a tubular aerophone with finger holes whose sound is produced by blowing air across a notched mouthpiece. In ancient times the kena was often made from gold, silver, ceramic, bone and cane. Kena flutes today are made from cane, wood, plastic and copper. The kena is the leading instrument in pan-Andean music groups heard throughout the Western world and Asia.
For hundreds of years native Andeans have also played fipple flutes of cane or wood, also known as pinquillo. The main drums were the Quechua tinya, a small-frame drum with two heads, and a larger instrument -- today called bombo, also with two heads. The kena and bombo remain the most common instruments.
The Spanish in the 16th century introduced guitars, harps, mandolins, violins, transverse flutes, pipes-and-tabors and oboes.
Early church fathers considered the harp, the violin and transverse flute to be the purest instruments for the accompaniment of Catholic songs and rituals; guitars and mandolins were considered too sensual for religious purposes so were not taught to the Indians.
The native people still adapted the guitar types to their own use by making them smaller and more portable, crafting them from armadillo shells because wood is scarce in the high Andes.
Since the 1970s, a "pan-Andean" musical style featuring kena flutes, siku panpipes, and charango have diffused from southern Peru and Bolivia into many of the cities and towns in the central Andes.
The "pan-Andean" musical style has been greatly diffused by the popularity of the new song groups of Chile, including Inti-Illimani and Quilapayn; Los Incas from Peru, who they recorded "El Condor Pasa" with Simon and Garfunkel; and Savia Andina from Bolivia.
On stage
What: Runa Pura: Traditional Music of the Andes
