Eliseo Parra
Lecture – concert. Eliseo Parra
La necesidad de cantar (The need to sing)
Sunday, 23 July 2023
17:30 Gothic Hall
Free admission until seating is full
Info
If there’s one thing that Eliseo Parra firmly understood during the dozen years of his fieldwork, it was the human race’s inherent need to accompany life with music. It may seem obvious because we see it every day everywhere, but until the 1930s, the common people didn’t have any “apparatus” to emit music. This need turned individuals into true transmitters of a colossal body of songs inherited through oral tradition across generations, accompanying almost every moment of life: lullabies, children’s games, songs of youth, labor, courtship, military service, weddings, laments, dance tunes, ballads, and even those associated with specific times of the year: Christmas, Carnival, Lent, and so on. The conference will provide a brief overview of some of these songs, revealing the remarkable musical and lyrical depth of the folk repertoire.
Picture © Miguel Balbuena