Performance Date & Location |  KC Streetcar Celebration & Ride

July 17, 5:30 p.m. Starting at Union Station Streetcar Stop

Artist Statement

The goal of this concert is to develop the Andean indigenous values of Ayni and Ayllu – reciprocity and community – through an interactive presentation of Andean and Amazonian instruments, rhythms, and song. Transporting the listener to the magical world of the Andes, Amado and his guest will share how musical instruments have been fundamental in human beings’ relationship to each other and to the environment, and in the well-being of our communities. 

By returning to the spiritual origins of music, I reciprocate in a fundamental relationship to the planet– the primordial breath of the oceans, the sounds of the rainforests; the construction of flutes using the clay of the earth, the fire to transform them and give them purpose, the offerings of music for rituals of Thanksgiving. However, my music is more than folkloric. My spirit is not bound by frontiers or genres. My community is urban, my art is inventive, many of my tools only work if I plug them in. I collaborate with artists of different genres so my mission to promote the dignity of native instruments reaches new ears, cultivating an organic root from the modern to the antique and diversifying our local musical landscape. Embracing technology does not make my intentions less “indigenous”. It enables me to create environments and musical textures familiar both exotic and familiar. I have journeyed throughout indigenous communities in South America to understand the cultural contexts of the instruments I play and use in my compositions. This resonates in my compositional work. There is joy, lament, prayer, nostalgia, empowerment in the songs that I compose. They are introspections on cultural mythologies and injustices of being colonized people. In collaborations rehearsals become journeys to transmit unified intentions more clearly.

The Convivencia of This Performance

My mission is to create compositions that dignify the role of indigenous instruments in our urban musical cultures and that serves as a subtle invocation for people to bridge back to nature; to dialogue through artistic collaboration and outreach, inspiring curiosity and respect for the earth’s ethnosphere.

Website | amadoespinoza.com