March 10, 2008
Mayupatapi (meaning “Riverside” in the Quechua language), also known as the UCR Andean Music Ensemble, performs regularly on the UCR campus as well as in the greater Riverside and Southern California community. Founded by Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology Jonathan Ritter in the spring of 2005, the ensemble includes undergraduate and graduate student members from a number of academic departments.
Mayupatapi performs music primarily from the central and southern Andean countries of South America, including the indigenous sikuri (panpipe) and tarka (duct flute) music of the Peruvian and Bolivian highlands, the syncopated rhythms of Afro-Peruvian genres played on guitar and cajón (box drum), and tunes for the popular “Andean ensemble” of guitar, charango (10 string mini-lute), panpipes, and bombo (bass drum). UCR is also home to one of the only sets of Afro-Ecuadorian marimbas (a type of xylophone) in the United States, a percussion ensemble that includes several types of drums and shakers in addition to the marimba itself.
Though Mayupatapi is a performance ensemble with a regular concert schedule, a heavy emphasis is placed during rehearsals on the meaning and experience of playing this music, including discussions about the original social and cultural context(s) in which a given piece is played, as well as the manner in which it is created and learned. To that end, the collective and participatory ethos of much music-making in the Andes is stressed, and use of musical notation is kept to a minimum in favor of relying on oral tradition.
