The Jesuit Missions - Their Music

There is no doubt that the remarkable music of the Jesuit reducciones has stood the test of time and is now a primary draw for tourists to the region. In fact, by some accounts, it is the key draw for the majority of visitors to the Chiquitania. Anyone who has had the pleasure of attending or hearing one of the famous concerts held under the auspices of the Santa Cruz-based Asociación Pro Arte y Cultura (APAC) will attest to this. Nowhere else on earth is this “Mestizo-Baroque” (to borrow a term often used to describe the area's art) music performed with such fidelity to the original score. Many performers use period instruments and costumes, and all concerts outside of Santa Cruz are held in the original Jesuit churches, making for an incredible aural and visual experience.

This unique music is now experiencing a real renaissance, thanks to the leadership of APAC and the pioneering efforts of the much-lauded Coros y Orquestas de las Misiones de Chiquitos, brought together by the Sistema de Coros y Orquestas (and now with six separate orchestras throughout the Chiquitania). Prominent individuals, like the brilliant musicologist Piotr Nawrot, SVD and famous conductor Rubén Dario Suárez Arana, also have contributed greatly to the success of this revival. A good visual presentation of this music also can be found on Jordi Busqué's Web site, Music in Chiquitania & Guarayos.

A Chiquitano musical group: Concepción	A native ensemble: San Xavier

APAC, as mentioned above, puts on highly regarded period music festivals - the internationally acclaimed Festivales Internacionales de Música Renacentista y Barroca Americana "Misiones de Chiquitos" - in Santa Cruz and the missions towns every other year. It has been doing so since 1996. In its Santa Cruz headquarters (see below) it offers books, CDs, and videos of these extravaganzas. For those of you who can't make it, these items are also available online at its Web site (which is in both English and Spanish). For more information on the schedule of continuous musical programmes that APAC offers in the mission towns, download this year's concerts brochure here.

The work of APAC deserves particular mention here. During the lengthy restoration of the Jesuit churches, an enormous trove of incalculably valuable musical scores were discovered: more than 5,000 sheets of sacred music in the Chiquitos missions and another 4,000 in various communities in the Moxos settlements, written by both European (including Domenico Zipoli, and the Jesuit missionary Frs. Schmid and Messner) and indigenous composers in the 17th and 18th centuries. Incredibly, this same music was played in the mission settlements every day throughout most of the 19th century, and its permanence in the daily life of the former reducciones played a prominent part in UNESCO's decision to declare six Jesuit towns of the Chiquitos and their templos World Heritage Sites.

A bell concert: San Ignacio de Velasco	A cruzeño youth choir: Concepción

To preserve this rare cultural environment and disseminate the unique musical legacy of the missions, in 1996 a few volunteers organized an international music festival, one that would have the magnificent Chiquitos templos as its setting, and in the process also awaken the inhabitants of these towns (and indeed, Bolivia and South America as a whole) to the importance of this legacy. And not to mention, also to provide some desperately needed income to this chronically impoverished region.

In spite of seemingly insuperable odds, it worked. Since 1996, every even-numbered year has seen these festivals put on successfully. They are now considered as the most important cultural event within Bolivia, as well as the world's largest event of its kind. Dozens of performances are held simultaneously throughout the Chiquitos missions (and in Santa Cruz), attracting the world's best-known musical groups, and augmented by indigenous choirs and musicians. All told, it is an unfogettable experience.

Practicing for her debut: San José de Chiquitos

APAC's work builds upon a foundation that is almost impossible to imagine today - one that is a living testimony to the amazing cultural synthesis created by the Jesuits and the local inhabitants centuries ago. As is well known, the Jesuit missionaries trained their naturally proficient "charges" to become phenomenal craftsmen in several fields. Even classical European musical instruments - the cello, harp, violin - were created anew in the depths of the Bolivian forests and plains by these people, without any innate knowledge whatsoever of what they were asked to make. In short order, each mission had not just a world-class church, but also an orchestra, several artisans' shops, and often schools of music and painting. Imagine this in a town of a thousand or two people, hundreds of miles from the nearest settlement of any size, and you begin to get a vague idea of what the Jesuits and indigenous peoples managed to create.

Until recently, many of these towns retained the age-old custom of appointing soflas, or hereditary musicians (often violinists) to teach the mission-era music to new generations. In Urubichá, a town in ultra-traditional Guarayos Province, there are still a few luthiers who continue to craft violins and other instruments exactly as their ancestors did three centuries ago. And the internationally renowned Gran Orquesta de las Misiones de Chiquitos, where young aspiring vocalists and instrumentalists carry on what their ancestors started so many years ago, flourishes in no less than 16 towns throughout the Chiquitania.

¡Buen trabajo, maestro!

If you're in or headed to Santa Cruz, by all means stop in at APAC's headquarters, which are located at calle Beni 228 (3.3332287). It is open Monday through Friday from 0900 to 1230 and again from 1500 to 1900. This is both a place to purchase some wonderful materials on the unique music of the area, as well as the offices where APAC puts together and synchronises its beautiful musical festivals. APAC's Fondo Editorial also sells books, CDs, and videos that treat the culture, history, and tourism of the Chiquitania and Beni regions.