In August the Missionary Music and Theater Festival arrives in Chiquitos | En agosto llega el Festival de Música Misional y Teatro en Chiquitos

El Deber:

Festival de Música Misional /Foto; Cepad
Festival de Música Misional /Foto; Cepad

The meeting will take place from August 24 to 27. The venues, in addition to the capital of Santa Cruz, will be San Javier, Concepción, San Ignacio, Santa Ana, San Rafael, San José, Roboré and Santiago de Chiquitos.

The Missionary Music and Theater Festival in Chiquitos 2023 will be held from August 24 to 27, under the organization of the Association for Art and Culture (APAC) and the Center for Participation and Sustainable Human Development (CEPAD), which intend to maintain live music in the Jesuit towns and promote tourism.

The meeting, created in 2006, will have as venues Santa Cruz de la Sierra, San Javier, Concepción, San Ignacio, Santa Ana, San Rafael, San José, Roboré and Santiago de Chiquitos.

According to the organizers, eleven musical groups will perform in these locations, with at least 400 artists. The presentation of the San José Patriarca Municipal Orchestra, Choir and Missionary Orchestra of San Xavier, Missionary Orchestra of Santa Ana de Velasco, Infanto Juvenil Paz y Bien Symphony Orchestra, Padre Martin Schmid Ensemble, San Carlos Orchestra, Ascensión de Guarayos Orchestra has been confirmed , Municipal Infanto Juvenil San Rafael Arcángel Orchestra, Virgen Milagrosa Orchestra, Choir and Orchestra of Santiago de Chiquitos and Choir and Municipal Orchestra of San Ignacio de Velasco.

Father Piotr Nawrot, artistic director of the festival and a member of the APAC board, indicated that one of the goals of the organizers is for the students to go to the Chiquitano towns to see and hear the orchestras, and to learn about the beauty and history of their people. “I would love to spend three days of each year in Concepción to not only show the concert and theater to the people, but also the musical archive: the most unique not only in Bolivia, but also in all of America and one of the most extraordinary in the world”, expressed the Polish priest, an expert on the subject after having studied more than 3,000 scores that were composed in colonial times.

Rubens Barbery Knaudt, president of CEPAD, considers it important to carry out the festival to value a culture that is still alive and that still does not have the visibility that it should have as a universal value. “At the time, the music of Chiquitos was a common language in the meeting of different cultures and with different ways of seeing the world. Today that music has a similar role,” he said.

Programa del Festival de Música Misional y Teatro
Missionary Music and Theater Festival Program

The festival will begin in the capital of Santa Cruz and from there it will go to the provinces. The orchestral performances, with the participation of regional musicians and from various parts of the department, will be given to the residents and visitors in the temples that treasure the legacy of the religious of the Company of Jesus. In some towns there will also be theater performances, such as Cattleya ExpressArte and Melopeya Estudio Escénico.

According to Piotr Nawrot, “the meeting allows to maintain the artistic life of the towns. In them, its inhabitants not only practice musical works of their folklore, but also the missionary baroque. That is why we devised this activity, for those who want to enjoy music, do it in the churches of the towns where they were created”.

With this, Barbery highlights the possibility of generating local economic development through the interaction of artists and tourists in the towns. “We are generating income from the movement generated by the same orchestras that go from one municipality to another and, above all, from the people who come to the region to attend the musical and theatrical presentations. It is important to highlight that in the tourism sector in Chiquitos, more than 80% of the employment that is generated is occupied by women, so it also has a positive impact on the economic autonomy of women,” he indicated.

The festival is also organized by the municipal governments that are the headquarters of the Chiquitos Jesuit Missions.

 

Leave a comment