MarKamusic means
"Music of the people" in Andean Quechua, the most widely spoken
native language of the Americas
(about 20 million people). Markamusic is also a high-energy,
multi-national
musical ensemble that performs Latin music deeply rooted within the
folkloric,
popular and traditional genres of Latin America, the Caribbean
and South American Andean regions. These regions comprise distinctively
different zones and lands. From the wind barren high plateaus of the
Andes; the
mystical Amazon rain forest, the heat of the Caribbean islands and the
deserted
coasts washed by the Pacific Ocean, Latin America
spans a whole varied and diverse continent. MarKamusic sensibly brings
the
musical forms and the soulful art of the cultures and countries from
these
regions. An ever changing, eclectic weave of ancient, modern,
aboriginal and
pop themes performed on a fascinating array of native, western and
African
influenced instruments. Like its ancestors before them, MarKa musicians
draw from
the well of their unique cultural past: Inca, Taino, Maya, African and
Spanish/European.
Since its inception in 1999, As a Peruvian and Andean folk music
quintet, MarKa
embraced the responsibility that an ethnic artist must have to its own
people,
history and music. Freddy Chapelliquen , MarKa's founder, with the help
of
brothers Ahmed and Rene Gonzalez and brothers Ryan and Marlon Bazan,
decided to
emphasize the musical and social contributions of the four major
cultural influences
that had shaped the modern, folk and traditional South and Latin
American music
they were so accustomed to hearing: the indigenous, the West African,
the
Euro-Iberian, and the United States. Traditional rhythms and music
forms from
these diverse cultures had slowly fused over the centuries, creating
that which
is today's Latin American traditional, folk and popular musics. MarKa's
careful
choice of repertoire and instrumentation was then to reveal this
historic
evolution to its audiences. In the mid 2000's the members started to
considered
the possibility of taking their music to a more eclectic, encompassing
and experimental
realm in order to replicate what was occurring in the music world
in
Latin America at the time.
The ensemble was then headquartered in western Massachusetts. Between
Amherst
and Springfield
to be more precise. In 2005 they became a seven piece group that
included many more western influenced instruments and rhythms. Deeply
moving at
times or full of fresh and ancient energy at others, MarKa's music
called
out to rekindle the senses of our human collective memory while trying
to carry
the audience across a panorama of musical history millennia: From the
delicate
sounds of Quechua and Aymara bamboo flute melodies to very high energy
Caribbean numbers. Western-European wind instruments, African
influenced
instruments, and jazz drums also found its way into their music
complementing
the bamboo flutes and diminutive Indian guitars of the folkloric
musicians in
marvelous, if sometimes off-beat ways.
Since then, MarKamusic's
repertoire has emerged as a combination of many themes: mainly their
own music,
but also reinterpretations of ancient Inca, Aymara and Quechua
aboriginal
melodies; songs arising from the nineteenth-century South American
struggle for
independence; the rarely heard treasures and sometimes jarring and
hypnotic
Afro-South American music such as the Música Negroide of Peru or
the Candombe
music from Uruguay; of Latin folk-rock protest music-banned in the mid
1970s under
pain of death by the military Juntas; and a handful of favorite
Latin-American
torch songs and high-energy pop tunes-the kind you might hear blaring
out of
jukeboxes in small-town luncheonettes and bars in say, Peru or
Colombia. The
sum of it all is that chairs are often empty or kicked over at the end
of the
performance and everyone is up on their feet, prancing or kicking about
like
crazy or taking part in a madcap, coiling conga-line.
MarKamusic tailors its
presentations to the educational interests of each audience. By varying
the
length of the informative commentaries preceding each number, a
MarKamusic
performance can indeed be a guided tour of Latin American musical forms
or a
complete carefree festival of musical delights. The ensemble Marka has
released
four albums to date, with much success. Their most recent: Unspoken
Union, is a tribute to much of this history, the union of
many cultural and musical influences that is well represented within
the
different backgrounds and countries of origin of its members as well as
the
historical evolution of Latino music.
Freddy Chapelliquen ,
12 Charles Lane , Amherst MA 01002-3801 USA Voice:
413-549-9155 Freddy@markamusic.com