The music of Paraguay

This event is hosted by performer and current postgraduate research scholar, Romy Martinez.

We invite you to enjoy the music of Paraguay, the heart of Latin America! Join singer Romy Martinez, accompanied by the Paraguayan harpists, The Corbalán Brothers, as they transport the listener to the region from where the Indigenous language Guarani emanates.  

By weaving together Guarani, Spanish and Portuguese, a shared cultural heritage is presented including songs from the border regions with Brazil and Argentina. Diverse rhythms, including Paraguayan Polka and Guarania, resonate together through the Paraguayan harp and voice, evoking sounds that merge like the rivers across the Latin American Continent.

Performers

Romy Martínez is a singer and ethnomusicologist. Her musical career and academic background are set between Paraguay (her country of birth) Brazil and Argentina. Besides being a native speaker in Spanish and indigenous language Guarani, she is proficient in Portuguese and English. She develops musical and research projects with artists and genres from different nationalities, especially those interrelating the cultural diversity in the Southern Cone of Latin America. As the founder of Purahei Trio, that gathers musicians from the aforementioned countries, she has released two albums and research work about a common regional musicality. She holds an undergraduate degree in Music Education from UDESC and a masters degree from Latin America’s Integration Postgraduate Program (PROLAM/USP), both obtained in Brazil. Besides, she specialised in Argentinian music at the Manuel de Falla Conservatory in Buenos Aires. Since 2018, as a BECAL scholarship holder, she is a doctoral researcher from the Music Departmen of of Royal Holloway University of London, focused on Paraguayan popular song, and the relations between bilingualism, exile and identity in its interpretation.

More information: www.puraheitrio.com or
https://youtu.be/JHdYtKvN_Nw (Taheñoi jey ñane mba'e - Romy Martínez)

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Since 2007 Sixto and Juanjo Corbalán perform as harp duo “The Corbalán Brothers”. This conformation is just unusual even in Paraguay where the harp is a national symbol of folk music. Each one has earned a place of privilege as soloist, so in the last years they are more and more required as harp duo en various venues in their country as well as abroad. In their compositions they conect different genres with their folk roots achieving a great musical versatility with an actual and renewed repertoire and conferring the young feeling to the contemporary music for Paraguayan Harp. With their powerful,harmonious but above all expressive music, they reach to draw images with all shades and constrasts which provide a magic very difficult to escape from. Their researchs and excursions to other genres turn this harp duo into a perfect harmony with an amazing sound.

More information: http://www.sixtocorbalan.com.py/en/hermanos-corbalan or https://youtu.be/8VsCg1KySEA (Brisas del Este - The Corbalán Brothers)