Cultural activities

Music of the Americas. The Songbook of Huehuetenango

Music of the Americas. The Songbook of Huehuetenango Cartel del espectáculo Huehuetenango

The Cervantes Institute in Los Angeles, in collaboration with the Mission of San Miguel Arcángel and Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo, is pleased to present the concert Music of the Americas: The Songbook of Huehuetenango, performed by two exceptional musicians renowned on stages and in conservatories around the world: Argentine Ariel Abramovich on vihuela and tenor Jonatan Narávez. 


Specialists in early music from the Americas, the program they offer brings together music pieces from a collection of music books from the current Department of Huehuetenango, in Guatemala. 

Originally compiled between 1582 and 1635, these rare books bear witness to the musical practices of a remote community, surrounded by the highest mountains in Central America and therefore far removed from the large colonial urban centers with their imposing cathedrals, choirs, and desks. 

The Huehuetenango archive is the result of several disruptions: on the one hand, the European disruption of the history of the original inhabitants, but on the other hand, the disruption of original American artistic production in the musical history of the European Renaissance and Baroque periods. Eventually, this series of disruptions, interruptions, and transformations comes to a close with the emergence of a new reality which, following the suppression of the missions, changes the meaning and function of these manuscripts, which have come down to us today as remnants of an extraordinary musical culture, whose scale and variety can only be precariously, but nevertheless joyfully, intuited. 

The concert on April 28 will be preceded by the lecture "Huehuetenango: Invention of a Book for Singing and Vihuela", given by Ariel Abramovich (vihuela) and Jonatan Narváez (tenor) at Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo on April 27.

Photo Gallery

As part of

Organizers