Album Notes

Music and dance are fundamental to the very fabric of the Andes, a fact to which the andean countries's innumerable colorful festivals will attest. Music and dance forms, like dress, vary greatly by region. Altiplano and andina (highland) music, played on wind instruments such as bamboo panpipes, quena flutes, bright-sounding and guitarlike charangos, and other instruments, is known the world over.

This record features Luzmila Carpio's compositions in a very popular music genre in the Andes mountains, the "Huayno". A musical work much closer to festive songs featured during the carnival period in the highland valleys in Bolivia and Peru.

Huayno songs in the Potosi region, where Luzmila comes from, are genrally composed for a very reduced ensemble of voice, guitar and charango, this last instrument is found in a wide variety of tunes (temple mayor, temple diablo, temple qimsa,...) depending of valleys or regions but also of events (harvest, carnival...). Usually known in its urban aspect -- with nylon strings --the charango, featured in this recording is played as in the valleys, with its metallic-strings by a talented young quechua musician.

Lyrics of the songs are in either Spanish and Quechua. Subjects include the earth, the seasons, harvest time, but mainly love.