Development Studies: Socio-economic Development from an Interdisciplinary Perspective
Saleha Erdmann
Introduction
Monday through Friday the students of the Instituto de Formación Integral de “Coro y Orquesta Urubichá” arrive at the parroquia, where the school is based, at 6:30 in the morning to start their classes in theory, history and practice. Boys with their violins poking out of Che Guevara and Jean Claude Van Damme knapsacks chatter as they walk through the front gate, trumpet players cross the lawn playing Beethoven’s Fifth, and the tiny harp students take class outside, seated on the wall with their instruments in the gutter. Sometimes, depending on which teachers and conductors are present, the musicians in the orchestra rehearse almost all afternoon until 9:30 at night.
This unique school has existed in Urubichá for ten years and since the beginning it has earned a national and international reputation. In 1996 the school participated in the first Festival de Música de Chiquitos with much success. Thus the baroque music boom that was initiated in Santa Cruz in the 1990’s incorporated the young Guarayo musicians of Urubichá. The boom and the festivals focused on baroque music in the Jesuit missions in Chiquitaneo towns and the music from the Chiquitaneo archives that were recently discovered. But any Urubicheno youth will tell you that the Guarayos are different from the Chiquitanos. (To read more about baroque music in the Chiquitaneao towns, refer to Appendix A.)
Urubichá is a town of 4,300 inhabitants in the rainforest of the Oriente (East) of Bolivia, located 340 kilometers from Santa Cruz de la Sierra and a six hour ride by bus from the city of Santa Cruz. It was founded in 1862 by the Franciscans. Urubichá is an indigenous town where almost all the people are Guarayo.
The families, especially the men, work in their chacos (subsistence farms), the women make artisan crafts, the children go to school. Many of the houses have adobe walls with palm-thatch roofs. The Catholic church and the parroquia is very influential in town, where the bell is heard several times a day and the German Father Walter is admired by all.
I encountered this place with awe, but with many questions: How had the town changed as a result of the presence of classical music? How had the students changed as a result of being a part of the Institute? Has it affected their identities? How can one explain the relationship between classical music—a Western art form—and Guarayo and Urubicheno culture? What is Guarayo and Urubicheno culture? What does the music mean to the people in this town?
To understand my answers to these questions one must first understand the historical context of the people and the town. Although maybe it is a lot to read, I have included brief histories of the Guarayos, the Franciscans, old Guarayo music, and the Instituto de Formacion Integral de “Coro y Orquesta Urubichá” and of SICOR (Sistema de Coros y Orquestas). Following that I have discussed the topic of identity of the students—their identity as Guarayos, their identity as musicians, and the meeting of the two. And finally I have identified some effects of classical music on the students and the town due to the presence of the Institute. Three weeks in Urubichá is not enough time to approach this complicated topic of classical music in Urubichá sufficiently, but I have something with which I can start…
next: History
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Neuwirth, 2000: 2-3, SICOR. Salinas Mulder, Rance, Senate Suarez & Castro Condori, 2000: 104.