The Global Charango by Heather Horak A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Music and Culture Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario © 2020 Heather Horak i Abstract Has the charango, a folkloric instrument deeply rooted in South American contexts, “gone global”? If so, how has this impacted its music and meaning? The charango, a small and iconic guitar-like chordophone from Andes mountains areas, has circulated far beyond these homelands in the last fifty to seventy years. Yet it remains primarily tied to traditional and folkloric musics, despite its dispersion into new contexts. An important driver has been the international flow of pan-Andean music that had formative hubs in Central and Western Europe through transnational cosmopolitan processes in the 1970s and 1980s. Through ethnographies of twenty-eight diverse subjects living in European fields (in Austria, France, Belgium, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Croatia, and Iceland) I examine the dynamic intersections of the instrument in the contemporary musical and cultural lives of these Latin American and European players. Through their stories, I draw out the shifting discourses and projections of meaning that the charango has been given over time, including its real and imagined associations with indigineity from various positions. Initial chapters tie together relevant historical developments, discourses (including the “origins” debate) and vernacular associations as an informative backdrop to the collected ethnographies, which expose the fluidity of the instrument’s meaning that has been determined primarily by human proponents and their social (and political) processes. This work then, will contribute to new organology’s prompt to consider instruments as dynamic proponants, inextricably entwined in human engagements. The work will also provide a measuring stick with which to ascertain the reach and impact of the charango in current global scenes. ii Acknowledgements Special thanks to Julio Mendívil at the University of Vienna for ongoing encouragement and mentorship throughout my Masters studies, in particular during my field work. Thanks as well to James Deaville at Carleton University, in particular for allowing me to embark on whatever I could dream up. Thanks to James Wright at Carleton University for enthusiasm, support and positivity. A nod to the few student colleagues I got to know at Carleton, you were wonderful. Universal thanks to Christi Loughery for true friendship and a lot of help, and to my mother, Linda Horak. Thanks to Camilo Gomez, Juan Francisco Sutta Cachi, Willy Rios and Julio Mendívil for charango instruction; and to Naomi Poole and Jeremy Sills for inviting me to Peru in 2015. Many thanks to all of the charango players I met during this research, who so generously shared their stories and lended their enthusiasm to this project. Your contributions were substantive, and of great importance. Engaging in the labor of scholarship would have been impossible without the various work spaces I had the privilege to access during this long and somewhat transient period. I would like to acknowledge Stetson University College of Law in Florida, in whose library I spent countless hours; my cousin Carrie’s back porch in Maine on which I labored in various phases; my mother’s Florida home (and “the Lodge” at Timber Pines, including its very sweet staff) in which I did hundreds of hours of work on this project; also her farm in N.Y. State where I finished revisions during the Covid 19 pandemic. A tip of the hat to Café Molo in Wakefield, QC, and to my own cottage on the Gatineau River. Much gratitude the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and MITACS Globalink for funding related to this project. iii Table of Contents Abstract i Acknowledgements ii Table of Contents iii-iv List of Illustrations v Table of Interviews vi Audio Index vii Preface: Imagining the “Global” Charango 1 Introduction: The Charango and Its Reach 6 Section I: Background and Contexts Chapter One: What is the Charango? 16 The wood, the strings, and more Chapter Two: Historical Context 26 The charango comes to Europe: Trans-local interventions and Indian tropes Chapter Three: The “Origins” Debate 54 Heritage wrestling matches and Bolivians in the field Section II: Ethnographies Chapter Four: Finding Charango Players 72 Notes on field method Chapter Five: “El Charango es mi vida”—“The charango is my life” 77 Personal stories, emotional attachments, and mystical imaginaries Migrant intersections and Andean identity: Cesar Guzman Roman 79 Teaching “otherness”: Luis Parra Madriaga 89 Travellers and troubadors: Yann Béréhouc: new music, new worlds Sebastian Janis Cerda: ticket to ride Ignacio Kaen: sentient journeys 94 The Sound of the Mountains: New Age mysticisms 100 and the “Pacha Mama” mystique Marie Laduron: “The charango is my alter-ego” Deni Plavčić: cross-cultural dreams Different sounds, or sounds of difference? 104 iv Ólöf Arnalds Chapter Six: The Innovators 114 New musics in cross-cultural intersections Jorge Cervantes 115 Ivan Latapiat 121 Patricio Zeoli 125 Conclusion: Is there a “Global” Charango? 133 References 142 Discography 150 v Table of Illustrations Description Source last accessed 1 Ernesto Cavour with his ‘Star’ https://www.pinterest.com/pin/521432463079166990/ 11/03/2020 charango 2 “The biggest charango in the http://investuraholistica.blogspot.com/2010/06/el- 11/03/2020 world” (Serrano, BL) charango-mas-grande-del-mundo.html 3 a ‘siren’ charango http://patagoniamonsters.blogspot.com/2010/10/pincoy- 11/03/2020 mermaid-from-peru-to-patagonia.html 4 Tarazona’s ‘Hatun’ charango https://federico-tarazona.weebly.com/hatun- 21/09/2019 Photo from his website charango.html 5 Violeta Parra, national folk hero Photo taken in Valparaiso, Chile by author (HH) January, 2016 in Chile. Wall mural 6 Ecuadoran street Photo taken in market area in Riga, Latvia by author July 2019 performer/merchant (HH) vi Table of Interviews (F2F= face to face, fklc = folkloric, orig = original, panA = pan Andean, reg = regional, mix=mixed genres, var=plays a regional/local charango variant, wind=also a wind player, perc=percussionist) Music/style/genre listed in order of current preference/main focus of each player. Last First Int. Via Interview Country Nationality Music style/genre date location 1 Arnalds Ólöf 9/18 F2F Reykavik Iceland Iceland Orig/songwriter 2 Béréhouc Yann 9/18 Skype Rheims France France Orig/fklc/panA 3 Latapiat Ivan 9/18 Skype Lyon France Chile Orig/mix/fklc/panA 4 Dimitri Nina 9/18 F2F Vienna Austria Switzerland Fklc/circus 5 Perez Antuco 9/18 F2F Paris France France/Peru Luthier/Fklc/panA 6 Plavčić Deni 9/18 Skype Zagreb Croatia Croatia Fklc/panA 7 Mendivil Julio 10/18 F2F Vienna Austria Peru Reg/var/fklc 8 Parra Madariaga Luis 10/18 F2F Vienna Austria Chile/Austr. Fklc/panA/orig 9 Alejo Cruz Paulino 10/18 F2F Vienna Austria Bolivia Reg/var/fklc/perc 10 Vila Quispe Lidovino 10/18 F2F Vienna Austria Bolivia Fklc/panA 11 Zeoli Patricio 10/18 F2F Berlin Germany Ireland Medieval/fklc 11 Rodriguez Tito 10/18 F2F Berlin Germany Peru/Ger Fklc/panA/orig 13 Vidal Leandro 10/18 F2F Berlin Germany Argentina Fklc/var/orig 14 Janis Cerda Sebastian 10/18 F2F Berlin Germany Argentina Fklc/panA 15 Hernandez Pedro 11/18 F2F Vienna Austria Chile Fklc/panA 16 Bedoya Luis 11/18 F2F Vienna Austria Bolivia Fklc/panA/reg/wind 17 Ferrier Claude 11/18 Skype Zurich Switz. Switzerland Fklc/panA/wind 18 Stocklin Carole 11/18 Survey Brussels Belgium Belgium Fklc/panA/wind 19 Laduron Marie 11/18 Survey Brussels Beligium Belgium Orig/fklc/panA 20 Ramos Armando 11/18 F2F Brussels Beligium Bolivia Fklrc/panA/wind 21 Mignot J. Louis 11/18 F2F Brussels Belgium Belgium Fklc/panA 22 Hernandez Osvaldo 11/18 F2F Brussels Belgium Mexico Orig/fklc/panA/perc 23 Guzman Roman Cesar 12/18 F2F Granada Spain Peru Fklc/panA 24 Kaen Ignacio 12/18 F2F Granada Spain Argentina Fklc/panA/mix/perc 25 Duran Salas Ignacio 12/18 F2F Almeria Spain Spain Fklc/panA 26 Pena Jose Luis 12/18 F2F Seville Spain Peru Fklc/panA 27 Božičević Zrinka 12/18 Skype Zagreb Croatia Croatia Fklc/panA/wind 28 Cervantes Jorge 01/19 F2F Lisbon Portugal Peru Fklc/panA/mix vii Audio Index Guide to the audio index: These sound samples collected during the field research are provided as sonic “snapshots” of various musical moments from this project. They are inserted throughout the text by footnote where relevant. Simply listen to each sample at the point in the text where it is footnoted according to the following list. Refer to the passages in the text where the indexed samples are footnoted for futher explanation of each beyond what is noted here. 1. Julio Mendivil demonstrating an Ayacuchano variant in Vienna, Austria. 2. Camilo Gomez's “charangon” (baritone fretless charango) from his second recording. 3. Encuentro Charangos Brussels charango orchestra playing “Virgenes del Sol” in Belgium. 4. Lucho Bedoya demonstrating kalampeo style in Vienna, Austria. 5. Paulino Alejo Cruz playing kalampeo at Bolivian National Day party in Vienna, Austria. 6. Cesar Guzman Roman demonstrating his busking repertoire from his youth in Granada, SP. 7. Ignacio Kaen demonstrating the walaycho variant in Granada, Spain. 8. Armando Ramos reciting his poem dedicated to the charango in Brussels, Belgium. 9. Jorge Cervantes and son demonstrating one of the son's interpretations in Lisbon, Portugal. 1 Preface At the outset of this project, the “global” charango was as much a question for me as it was a hypothesis. Has the charango, a folkloric instrument deeply rooted in South American contexts, “gone global” (Turino 2003)?1 If so, how has this impacted its music and meaning? The charango has circulated far beyond the Andes in the last fifty to seventy years, primarily in the international flow, exchange, and performance of what is broadly known as Andean music, which had formative hubs in Central/Western Europe.