Ensamble de Músicas Campesinas - Facultad de Artes ASAB

Abstract

The Ensamble de Músicas Campesinas (Peasant Music Ensemble) is one of the musical groups within the Curricular Project of Musical Arts of the ASAB Faculty of Arts at the Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas. Directors: Efraín Franco Arbeláez and Marco Villarreal Otero The Peasant Music Ensemble of the ASAB Faculty of Arts was born from the interest of a professor and some students in securing an academic space for the practice of these musical styles. The initiative materialized in February 2008 when the Curricular Project Council approved its programming as another of the ensembles where students have the option to participate as an academic subject. It began its experience with the knowledge and practice of carranguera and torbellino music. Rajaleñas has since been added to these expressions. The ensemble also explores different peasant expressions based on fretted instruments (like the requinto, tiple, and guitar) and small percussion: rajaleñas, party music (músicas de parranda), peasant music from colonization zones, and others. The ensemble space is consolidating as an environment where the intuitive or empirical practice (by ear, oreja, caracol, or de "guataca"—as it's called in popular slang) is vindicated, meaning without sheet music. Here, demanding levels of study, arrangement, assembly, and interpretation are undertaken to fulfill the aesthetic and technical expressive statute characteristic of these musical styles. The development and evolution of the ensemble contribute to the much-needed and current dialogue between traditional and academic knowledge, which is fundamental in the continuous construction of Colombian musical knowledge and imaginary. A line of research in traditional and popular music is currently gaining increasing relevance in the Colombian and international academic field. It has performed concerts in the Samuel Bedoya Auditorium of the ASAB Faculty of Arts, the Auditorium of the Luis A. Calvo Academy, the Auditorium of the Attorney General's Office (Procuraduría General de la Nación), at the La Mediatorta Outdoor Theater, the First, Third, Sixth, Seventh, Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Convite Cuna Carranguera in Tinjacá –Boyacá-, the Convites de la India Infiel in Sesquilé 2008 and 2010, in Cogua, Guasca, Funza, Usme, Bosa, Sumapaz, Arbeláez, Cahipay, San Juán de Rioseco, Villapinzón, and Cota in Cundinamarca, as well as in Ramiriquí, San Miguel de Sema, and Moniquirá –Boyacá-. In 2016, the Ensemble carried out an enriching and joyful “Academic Practice” to exchange knowledge with the children, youth, and teachers of the Peasant Music School of the Santa Bárbara village, Tinjacá municipality. Based on their experience in the Ensemble, their personal background, and the advice of the professor, four students formed the group “Pa’ la tierrita” which, during the first semester of 2010, musically scored the documentary “Toda la vida el campo” (All Life the Countryside) with original music and developed the recording and distribution of a compact disc with the nine composed themes. The degree thesis “Cercanías entre la tradición y la academia. Creación de músicas campesinas para el documental “Toda la vida al campo” (Connections Between Tradition and Academia. Creation of Peasant Music for the Documentary "All Life the Countryside") emerged from this same experience, declared Meritorious by the jury. Throughout its existence, over fifty students from different instruments and focuses of the Curricular Project, and some from other faculties, have passed through the ensemble. Some of them have founded or been part of groups such as “Los rolling ruanas”, “La real carranga”, “Alma carranga”, “La tusa carranguera”, “Los alegres músicos parrandistas”, “Cuatro gatos”, and “Pa’ la tierrita”.