FRoots Magazine Root Salad April 2003
MAURICIO VENEGAS
Christine Charter meets the Quimantu main man.
Mauricio Venegas spends his time making music between the UK and Chile. He leads the group Quimantu, who a year ago celebrated 20 years of South American roots in English soil, with a wild anniversary gig called Ida Y vuelta - Comings And Goings at London's Cecil Sharp House. Among special guests were guitarist John Williams, singer-guitarist Robb Johnson and melodeon player Roger Watson, offering just a glimpse of the musical mates Venegas has made over many years playing in different groups. December 2002 saw Quimantu at the Purcell Room celebrating the imminent release of their new disc, Caral, on which both John Williams and Phil Manzanera (ex-Roxy Music) play. As a long-term cultural activist stimulated by being a Chilean exile, Venegas met Williams doing events for Chile, and Manzanera for Cuba. "John's been a great friend and supporter always, and Phil and I have this idea of composing a musical about the life of Che Guevara, seeing him not so much as a larger-than-life hero but as a human being. We're working on it!"
A long-term Venegas fan, all attempts to catch up with him on-the-spot after shows gets lost in toasts involving Chilean wine. Eventually I pin him down one Friday afternoon when he and musical partner Rachel Pantin have just finished one of their Musiko Musika teaching sessions in Hackney. We head for the warmth of a coffee bar to talk about various projects and recent trips to Chile. Mauricio adores teaching kids and sees education as the key to everything. He and Rachel are renowned for their special schools projects (some funded by the National Foundation For Youth Music 'music-makers' programme) and for exchanges between schools in Chile and England.
While sipping coffee Mauricio talks about Santiago, a young Colombian boy who is learning to play the small armadillo charango: "For me it has such cultural resonance. You know lots of Latin American children in London do not have much access to their music and culture here. We show them all the instruments found throughout South America from cuatros to congas to charangos and they see that there is more to Latin American music than salsa. In Santiago's case there is bambuco, pasillo, currulao, pasaje and so many things. Kids light up. They get really proud. Santiago sees he can have Colombian and South American and English culture too and combine them with things from other parts of the world if he likes."
Venegas is a master player of panpipes, bamboo flutes, charangos, guitars and more. Indeed he's taught himself to play a full gamut of South American instruments over the years. His early musical work in the UK involved working with groups like Pueblo and Epu Amarantu. He spent some time with Incantation before going on to record soundtracks for films like The Mission, Priest, The Honorary Consul.
Quimantu's debut album Camino Al Sol focused on Andean and Latin American musical themes. Subsequent discs include Navedad Andina (Andean Christmas), a beautifully atmospheric suite of songs, and the Misa De Los Mineros, Plegaria Del Pueblo (A Mass For Miners, A People's Prayer). At the root, Quimantu's sound is 20th century Chilean. Its instrumentation and styles pay tribute to the folk and groundbreaking 'new song' group traditions of Argentina and Chile of the 1960s and 70s, with their use of Andean-inspired melodies, catchy dance rhythms, textured strings and percussion over bombo drum. But rather than trapped in a time warp, Venegas' music has, overtime, developed its own authenticity, absorbing exchanges with musicians from other cultures. Since Pantin and her sublime violin joined Quimantu, her classical background and acute attention to timbres and tones, added to the fact that Quimantu in one form or another have worked with many different world music groups, has resulted in their own distinctive sound. Today, as well as Mauricio and Rachel, there is Ecuadorian Pato Espinosa on various strings, Chilean Carlos Fuentes on South American percussion and Jonathan Davie on double bass.
Recently Venegas has been premiering work in Chile among the famous coalmining communities of Coronel and Lota. This is where he comes from and where, before the infamous Pinochet coup d'etat of 1973, he was a student of mining engineering. His recent premiere was the Cantata Del Carbon Socavon, following a tradition forged during the 'new song' period when classical composers like Luis Advis composed the historic Cantata Santa Maria De Iquique. "It uses Chilean and Latin American folk rhythms to tell the history of the coalminers in the region and in that way of Chile too. I hope it acts like a humanist testimony to their lives. It follows classic cantata form, involving four songs, six instrumental. Mining today is about disappearing communities where the industry has gone and in Coronel the whole situation for young people is pretty grim. There are few resources and little happening for them, so having a sense of the significance of the history of the place feels good. We'd love to get the NUM interested and do it here with a brass band and maybe for mining communities in other parts of the world like Spanish Asturias and Australia." Back in Coronel, Venegas was honoured with the Premio Municipal De Arte, the local government's artistic prize. When the UN celebrated the 50th anniversary of their charter he was chosen as one of the world's prominent refugee artists.
How did he get into music? "In my family everyone sang, from boleros to serious music, but I'm the only one to do it professionally! And in that case coming to the UK as an exile has had a positive effect."
Venegas finances his Chile work by composing library music: "I've done 15, including Cuba, Brazil, Latin America, salsa, roughly one a year. That's how I support the projects and make a living."
The album Caral takes its name from a recently discovered ancient Peruvian site, revealing an economy based on barter and exchange rather than conquering and war. Its themes are justice and freedom as foundations for a peaceful world, offering a better future for children. One song, Vagaluna, concerns children forced to beg on the streets. Interestingly, it's a theme that's been taken up recently by Ojos de Brujo in Spain and Illapu in Chile. "It came to me when a kid came to my door asking for food one night here. Of course, it is true of Chile, but here too and most big cities worldwide. When I teach through music I try to get over to kids the importance of behaving humanly and having compassion for each other."
There's a beautiful version of Violeta Parra's tragic love song Run-Run Se Fue P'al Norte (Parra being Chile's greatest 20th century folklorist-composer), with Rachel on violin and John Williams (who plays on five tracks) on guitar. Pride of place goes to the title song Cara/, a song for peace. "Post 11th September gives you the feeling that the world is in the hands of maniacs. Ironically it was the same date as Pinochet's coup. We're not so much asking as demanding peace, opening up the song by using percussion from all over the world from places that think alike even if their cultures are different. The words say: 'More peace, more justice, more food'. It's about not waiting but helping children on the planet now."
Dr. Jan Fairley