Venezuela: Music of the Orinoco

Description

Cheo Hurtado, a virtuoso of the cuatro and the bandola guayanesa, presents part of the vast traditional Venezuelan repertoire, mainly drawn from pre-Baroque and Baroque Hispanic music: melodic richness and rhythmic vigor. The Spanish conquest reached Venezuela very early, where Christopher Columbus landed near the Orinoco Delta on his third voyage in 1498. Close to Santo Domingo and Cuba, through which most exchanges with the mainland passed, Venezuela received many musical influences from Baroque Europe. In addition to ecclesiastical and secular learned music, it was also Spanish popular forms that acclimatized across the continent, and it can be thought that these musics had already received African and American influences in Spain itself. Over the centuries, they were transformed into traditional music. Cheo Hurtado learned the cuatro from his father and performed very early as a soloist, winning several prizes. He also plays the bandola llanera, the mandolin and the Cuban tres, and has joined various groups including “Gurufio,” one of the best known in Venezuela.