SIGNS OF SYNTHESIS

Peruvian electroacoustic music (1991-2000)

By Luis Alvarado

In the bulletin 103 of the Casa de las Americas, published in the second

semester of 1984, there is an article by Peruvian composer and musicologist

Aurelio Tello, offering a full-scale view of what by then was the last

generation of Peruvian composers: the generation of the 70s, nicknamed by

Celso Garrido-Lecca as The Superstars. Making a recap of the musical

production of those composers, Tello indicates: Signs of the conditions

under which we work can be seen at first sight: the reduced amount of

instruments, null access to contemporary technology, the activity being

limited to the National School of Music, just one concert a year, the

preparing of pieces in hours outside of everyday activities, etc.. (1)

This comment gives us a first glimpse to the status quo in Per by the

beginnings of the 80s. Lets go, for a moment, a little further back.
The two composers that had been in the spotlight as far as creation with

electronic means in the 60s and 70s were Cesar Bolaos and Edgar

Valcarcel. Both composed abroad: Bolaos in Argentina, at the Laboratorio

de Msica Electrnica of the Centro Latinoamericano de Altos Estudios

Musicales (CLAEM) of the Instituto Torcuato Di Tella, while Valcarcel

worked at the laboratory of the University of Columbia in the United States

of America in the 60s and at McGill University in Canada in the 70s.

Bolaos came back to Peru in 1973 and dedicated himself to musicological

research thanks to a post offered by the newly founded Instituto Nacional de

Cultura. He wrote a couple of instrumental pieces and by the late 70s he

practically decided to abandon composition. Nevertheless he dedicated

himself fully to studying pre Hispanic musical instruments. On the other

hand Valcarcel saw his intent of creating an electronic music laboratory at

the Universidad de Ingenieria upon his return to Lima in 1967 fall apart. He

returned to Canada by the late 70s and came back to Peru with two more

electronic pieces.

In conclusion, what both composers learnt abroad had no support in Lima;

nevertheless they gave some conferences and premiered their pieces

stimulating a younger generation.

Even though the dream of a laboratory was not fulfilled there were those

who ran some private experiences. Rafael Junchaya Gomez wrote by the
end of the 60s an electronic piece as the background for a theatre play using

an open reel tape recorder and an assorted set of percussion instruments.

Alejandro Nuez Allauca wrote two concrete pieces using open reel tape

recorders in the 60s, before he won a scholarship for the Instituto Di Tella,

where he would also write an electro acoustic piece. Pedro Seiji Asato wrote

in 1972 a combined piece using radio recordings. And Luis David Aguilar

composed instrumental pieces from the late 70s well into the 80s, for two

documentary films by Jose Antonio Portugal with a well cared post

production treatment, becoming a pioneer in the country as he made the best

use of the resources and studio effects for the recording of an avant-garde

piece. With a synthesizer he also composed two experiments of nueva

cancion, with an underlying totally electronic base. Lets not forget the

works that nearly secretively percussionist Manongo Mujica was

undertaking, locked up in a recording studio as he wrote a series of pieces

for recording tape, amongst them some used for the short experimental

videos by artist Rafael Hastings. Nor the case of Miguel Flores, who had

been the drummer for Pax and who, after forming the neo folklore group

Ave Acustica in 1974, began the research that took him, already in the 80s,

to fuse Andean music, shamanic chants with electronic sounds and extended

use of instruments. These pieces were used for the sound track of a

performance by choreographer Luciana Proao. (2)

We can say that musical creation with electronic means, produced in Peru,

was sporadic even in the face of hard production conditions and to a large
extent it developed in turfs outside of the academic music realm (video,

dance, theatre).

On the other hand, the diaspora was, as always, the only option to develop

for the electro acoustic composer in Peru in those years (even today). By the

end of the 70s two composers left Peru to study electronic music: Claudia

Woll moved to South University, California and Arturo Ruiz del Pozo went

to the Royal College at the University of London and it is Ruiz del Pozos

work that sets the pace to begin to weave the historical thread of electro

acoustic music of the 80s in Peru.

In London Ruiz del Pozo graduated with a series of concrete pieces, using

recordings of native instruments, making use of all of the available sound

resources that these gave, including rubbing and banging. He called these

pieces Composiciones Nativas. He came back to Peru and alongside

Manongo Mujica and Omar Aramayo he formed an experimental group

called Nocturno, he published Composiciones Nativas independently as a

cassette tape and produced a series of concerts in which, besides music,

basically being played from the original recording tape sources, he included

light projections with water, oil and tints in the best manner of psychedelic

projections for San Francisco rock bands. One of these concerts took place

at the Auditorio del Banco Central de Reserva in August 1984. The Puno
born composer and musicologist Americo Valencia (3) was there and a few

days later he published in a newspaper called La Republica these lines:

In spite of its name and the announced use of native instruments, these

have been used to obtain primary sounds for the electronic process, the

random-electronic-concrete experimental music we here talk about has no

socio cultural backing within the process of Peruvian music in general,

much less, in the development of Andean music. Thus, this experimental

music has nothing to do with the real experimental music coming from the

Andes.

Valencias commentary got itself an answer from the musical critic Roberto

Miro Quezada (a jazz connoisseur) generating a debate which gave as a

result the publishing of five interesting articles that synthesized the tensions

that already in the 70s seemed to direct some of the paths for Peruvian

music, on one hand that nationalism which rejected imported fashions

and, on the other hand, a little bit behind, the interest of some to open

themselves to sound experimentation and unorthodox fusion. Roberto Miro

Quezada would answer Valencia:

Why do you feel uncomfortable with the fact that Arturo Ruiz del Pozo is

inspired by Andean sounds? I have not talked with Ruiz of this matter I
havent had the pleasure of meeting him but I do not think he is attributing

himself the exclusiveness of experimental Andean music. Moreover I do not

think Arturo Ruiz thinks he is doing Andean music. As an individual born in

these lands called Peru, he is inspired by one of the cultural elements upon

which it is conformed.

To understand the cultural environment in which new composers shall

emerge we must go back again to the 70s. As we already know, the coming

to power of General Juan Velasco Alvarado in 1968, as head of a military

junta which toppled President Fernando Belaunde Terry; provoked a

transformation in the cultural imaginary of the country, re positioning

folklore and native cultural manifestations as signs of the end of an

oligarchy which had been in control of the country. The National Prize for

Culture in Fine Arts was handed out to altarpiece artisan Joaquin Lopez

Antay, an Ayacucho native. And what is most important, Peruvian composer

Celso Garrido-Lecca, founded in 1974 the Talleres de la Cancion Popular,

inspired on his experience with left wing groups and the Nueva Cancion in

Chile, a country where he lived for 25 years, until his return to Peru in 1973.

He also promoted the teaching of native instruments at the National

Conservatory and in general he energized Peruvian music with a proposal to

look back into its roots. Thus an important number of reckoned folk

groups were formed. Nueva Cancion had an important place in the cultural

life of Lima and its highlight was the creation, in 1986, of the Semana de

Integracin Cultural Latinoamericana, sponsored by Alan Garcias

government. Many Latinamerican stars came for that festival which had an

astronomical disbursement to cover production costs. Peruvian composer

Enrique Iturriaga, from the National Conservatory, indicated then that such

an event was taking place turning our backs on reality. (4)

Celso Garrido-Lecca indicated we have to look at ourselves. In the

meantime Valcarcel had to carry as a burden the fact of being accused of

being a pro imperialist musician because he promoted avant-garde music.

With the return of democracy in 1980 Valcarcel took the post of head of the

conservatory and the Talleres de la Nueva Cancion came to an end.

Our point is that these tensions allow us to shed light on two ideological

visions. And that is what we can still see in the discussion between Americo

Valencia and Roberto Miro Quezada.

Pay attention to your time

One year after the controversy, in 1985, Americo Valencia traveled to the

United States for a post graduate course in electronic music. He acquired

some equipment but his interest in more inclined toward research on Andean

instruments, especially sikuris. His name was again mentioned in 1988

when he founded the Centro de Investigacin y Desarrollo de la Msica

Peruana (CIDEMP) with Jose Sosaya, another composer.

Sosaya came from Trujillo and he arrived in Lima in the 70s to become an

outstanding student at the conservatory. In 1984 he traveled to France for

two years for a course in electronic music with the Groupe de Recherches

Musicales de Paris and another course at the Conservatorio de Bologna.

When he returned to Lima, Sosaya gave some conferences but he had to

wait until 1990 to get a synthesizer and a computer to be able to compose

his electronic pieces.

Before traveling, Sosaya had met another composer, Gilles Mercier, who

also traveled to France to enroll himself at the conservatory in Lyon.

Mercier had already begun electronic experimentation taking part in the

creation of the sound track of a documentary produced in 1983. When he

returned from Paris in 1989 he continued his experimentation using tape

recorders, forming the improvisation group Codice with which he performed

only once.

With CIDEMP Sosaya gave two concerts in 1990: Escuche su siglo and

Musica peruana contemporanea. In both concerts Gilles Mercier presented

electronic pieces while Sosaya only presented pieces for instruments. The

piece Arp 2600 by Gilles Mercier was the result of a course which the

composer took in Sao Paulo that same year. Two years later, he also
composed Metamorfosis, one of his best known pieces for cello and

synthesizer.

Two other composers from the conservatory would join Sosaya and Mercier:

Edgardo Plasencia, who had traveled to Vienna to study electronic

composition in 1988 and Rafael Junchaya, Jose Sosayas pupil. The four

composers produced a concert on December 5th 1991 at Teatro Larco in

Miraflores under the name Msica Electroacstica Peruana, sntesis digital

y MIDI. The concert which was also organized by CIDEMP took place

thanks to an initiative by Grupo de Investigacion Teatral, Umbral, lead by

the renowned actor and director Alberto Isola. Probably this was the first

concert in Peru wholly dedicated to electro acoustic music. It was promoted

as the first MIDI concert of Peruvian compositions. All in all four pieces

were played, amongst them Variaciones sobre un sonido, which Plasencia

had composed that same year at the studio of the Hochschule fr Musik in

Vienna. This was the first Peruvian MIDI piece and it utilized the sound of a

charango as its primary sound matter, using a computer controlled Akai

sampler. Piedra del Qosqo, by Rafael Junchaya, which was written for two

synthesizers and computer, using a CZ-3000, a D-10 Roland and a 1040ST

Atari, was also played on that occasion; it also being his first electronic

piece. (5)
This group of composers was already creating an imaginary or a new culture

based on electro acoustic composition, even though precariously and with

the little resources they had. The relationship between technology and art in

Lima hadnt been neither intense nor visible, despite the existence of the

Natiotal Council for Science and Technology (Concytec) which gave great

support to culture, above all research in its many forms.

It must be said that, coinciding with the production of this MIDI concert,

other experiences were simultaneously occurring. For example, the

appearance of the noise artist Alvaro Portales and his project Distorsion

Desequilibrada who played Industrial Noise, Manifest 1. Months prior to the

MIDI concert of Peruvian pieces, the concert Sintomas del Techno, many

techno music bands, who had keyboards and synthesizers, joined forces and

made themselves known, at La Cabaa. Something was going on. Peru

entered uncertain times after President Alberto Fujimoris self coup. At the

same time the country was recovering from its cultural isolation and the

hyperinflation it had undergone during the 80s. A consumerism culture was

sprouting as Peru moved into a neo liberal economy and opened to foreign

capital. Investment, and the consequent consumerism; were directed at the

private realm essentially and this was connected to some technological

emergence.
By 1993 the Sosaya-Mercier team would take their interests a little further

by creating GEC (Grupo de Experimentacion y Creacion) being joined by

guitarist Oscar Zamora, this allowing them to position themselves as an

electro acoustic creative alternative. That same year, under Sosayas

auspices the conservatory acquires a SY 77 Yamaha synthesizer. The group

produces a concert, which takes place at the Goethe Institut, where electro

acoustic pieces by Gilles Mercier, Rafael Junchaya, Jose Sosaya and Cesar

Bolaos, besides instrumental pieces by other Peruvian composers, were

presented. As a result of these experimentations by GEC, Gilles Mercier

produced in 1994 one of the most special pieces of this period, Improva, for

processed guitar, synthesizer and computer, and premieres it that same year.

The author labeled his piece as Kagel influenced in reference to the avant-

garde composer Mauricio Kagel.

That same year Sosaya travels to Madrid with a scholarship for a brief

residence at the Laboratorio de Informatica y Electronica Musical de Madrid

(LIEM) which resulted in the composition of his electronic piece,

Evocaciones.

The sum of these experiences had already created the seedling for Jose

Sosaya to found the Taller de Musica Electroacustica del Conservatorio

Nacional in 1995. Thus a small laboratory with very basic elements, a SY77

Yamaha synthesizer, a small 8 track mixer and a Pentium computer with a

Cubase software, was created. That tiny equipment constituted itself as our

brand new first official electro acoustic music laboratory in Peru. And

approximately twenty compositions were created there in a time span of two

years divided in four terms. The following students from the careers of

composition and musicology enrolled: Nilo Velarde, Julio Benavides,

Renato Neyra, Federico Tarazona, Fernando Panizo, Eduardo Suarez, Alipio

Bazn, Carlos Mansilla, Cesar Morillo Benavides, Andy Icochea y Daniel

Sierra. (6)

Of all of these composers only Julio Benavidez, Nilo Velarde and Federico

Tarazona would develop a greater interest for electro acoustic composition.

Benavidez would later be in charge of the course on electro acoustic

composition at the National Conservatory. Tarazona would continue his

studies on electro acoustic composition in France apart from having a

relevant career as a charango player. Amongst his pieces one can recall

Metarongosofia N 1 (1995) and N 2 (2005), in which he uses sound

samples from the charango which he processes electronically, creating a

sound weaving with great texture richness.

At the same time this small laboratory appeared other Peruvian composers

living abroad were producing important work. Such is the case of the

already mentioned Edgardo Plasencia, a most prolific composer with an

ample specter of work. His series of compositions Fractal Songs (1993) is

remarkable as is the series of pieces composed between 2001 and 2003.

Another special case is that of Rajmil Fishman, based in Keele, England,

who in some pieces shows the use of sonorities from the Afro Peruvian

tradition. Formed at the University of York, England, he has composed a

large number of electro acoustic pieces as well as audiovisual works and

above all mixed pieces, amongst which one has to mention Los Dados

Eternos (1994), for oboe, tape and live electronics, which is probably one of

the most ambitious Peruvian electro acoustic pieces of this period. The

electronic piece Sin Los Cuatro (1994) was composed with a Composers

Desktop Project (CDP) program using an Atari ST. In 2007 the Canadian

label EMF released a record with his electronic compositions called A

Wonderful World.

Besides Rajmil, another important Peruvian composer who has taken his

career abroad is Cesar Villavicencio, based in Sao Paulo, Brazil. With some

collaborators he has made an e-recorder, an instrument which can record and

process sounds live. He has also developed a whole theory concerning

improvisation and the use of electronic instruments. The mixed piece

Mundos (2000) for processed traditional instruments is one of his most

important pieces.

The era of access

By mid 90s Peru had been able to control its severe economic crises. The

arrival of internet promoted great access to information which translated

into a diversity of musical styles becoming known. Add to this the

socialization of technology as a consequence of prices for PCs and laptops

dropping significantly. As Julio Benavidez well put it in a recent interview:

I stepped upon technology as it was the cheapest instrument to generate

sonic objects. For the new generation of Peruvian electro acoustic

composers the scope is different. By 1995 Alta Tecnologia Andina, which

would be in charge of organizing the Electronica video art festival, begins to

operate and it is then that all of a sudden a different category becomes legit

locally: it is that of new media, a flexible category governed essentially by

the media used, meaning electronic media, new technologies. The Festivales

de Video Arte in Lima are a sign of the art boom with new media that will

also allow for electro acoustic music to come out, even though shyly, from

its strictly academic space and composers come together with electronic

artists and video artists. The renewed world of visual arts in Lima by the end

of the 90s opens space for experimentation with new media and suddenly in

the same space you find electro acoustic music, experimental music,

improvisation, noise, etc. And many young artists occupy that limbo where

different traditions come together in accordance to that hybrid attitude of

diluting frontiers which characterizes contemporary musical proposals. That

is the case of the new electronic composers who become known in the

2000s, such as Jaime Oliver or Renzo Finilich who shall write a new chapter

for electro acoustic music in Peru.

This compilation brings together for the first time the Peruvian electro

acoustic music produced in the 90s which implies the arrival of a new

generation of Peruvian composers interested in creating with electronic

media, showing a diversity of aesthetic options. This marks the beginning of

the use of computers and software for local electro acoustic productions and

it becomes an essential document to know and important link in the recent

history of electronic music in our country.

The project of this compilation began as an invitation to give a conference at

the Foro Latinoamericano de Musica por Computadora (FLAMUC)

organized by Realidad Visual.

NOTES

01 The text by Aurelio Tello is called Nuevos Compositores en el Per and it was
reproduced in the magazine Hueso Hmero in October 1984.

02 The pieces by Nuez Allauca are: Variables para seis y cinta magnetica (1967),
Divertimento para cuatro voces femeninas (1967), both using voice and noise
recordings. Gravitacion Humana (1970) composed at the Di Tella. Pedro Seiji Asato
composed Quasar III using short wave radio recordings. The members of the group with
which Miguel Flores recorded the pieces for the performance by Luciana Proao were
Abelardo Oquendo (guitar), Manuel Miranda (winds), Arturo la Cruz (synthesizer) and
Miguel Flores (percussion). Voices by Corina Bartra, and field recordings of ashaninka
women.

03 He had been part of the Talleres de Cancion Popular

04 The group Alturas, which took part in SICLA, would also question the excesses in
production costs, compared to the bad situation that the National School of Folklore
underwent. Another big event that incarnates this folklore fever, even though blended
with an experimental search, was Marcahuasi 88, Encuentro por la paz. This concert
was produced at the Markahuasi plateau, 4000 meters above sea level. Rock bands and
folk groups performed there and the main act was the piece Canto a Markahuasi by
Arturo Ruiz del Pozo (he produced the event) combining symphonic rock with folklore,
with abundant use of synthesized sounds. Del Pozo had Manongo Mujica, Chocolate
Algendones and others in his band. The event gathered five thousand people and it had
the support of CONCYTEC.

05 Rafael himself indicates: By mid 80s, when I already studied architecture at UNI,
it was my father who got interested in digital synthesizers which were beginning to
come. It was his idea to buy a CZ-3000 Casio which was MIDI because for him the
connection to the computer was attractive. Of course we didnt have a computer then
but the possibility was there. I discovered that that synth, even though it was one of the
first digitals with MIDI, had quite advanced options to generate sound such as eight step
envelopes to control the filters. It had neither velocity nor aftertouch; but it kept the key
follow and glide of analog synths. I first used it to do some rock with a band from UNI
and San Marcos (TTL), but by late 80s my father decided to buy a computer and back
then the best option to work with MIDI was the ST series from Atari. So we bought an
ST1040 Atari and I got some programs. My father was more interested in the possibility
of hearing his pieces for orchestra with the computer/synthesizer combination and the
CZ didnt have the best timbres for that purpose. He then bought a D-10 Roland which
was better for such a purpose. With these two synths and the computer I began to create
stuff that was more electronic.

06 The pieces that were composed in this workshop are: Glissando 5 by Nilo Velarde,
Msica 1 by Julio Benavidez, Athe by Renato Neyra, Metarangosofa by Federico
Tarazona, Internophona by Fernando Panizo, Espacios by Eduardo Suarez, Conflictos
by Alipio Bazn, Pacha by Carlos Mansilla, Intemporal, ABSTrackSion and Impresin
by Jos Sosaya, Celeste by Andy Icochea, Fitoplasma by Daniel Sierra, Escena musical
by Csar Benavidez, Mutaciones 1 by Gilles Mercier.