History
Trying to define a “Latin American” music style is as complex as its history and geography. CAMINOS DEL INKA, a musical journey, uses the Inca Empire as a focal point to explore the varying musical styles of South America.
The most advanced and complex native civilization in South America, the Inca Empire was centered in the Andes mountains in Peru, but extended to the Pacific ocean and the Amazon basin. The Incas built extensive trails that unite six current countries: Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Chile and Argentina. This network of amazing pathways is called The Inca Trail or Caminos del Inca, and is used as the backbone of this broad musical project.
Peru was the center of the Inca Empire and continued as such throughout the almost 300 years of Spanish colonial times. Following independence from Spain, by the 1820’s, every South American country (with the exception of Guyana and Suriname) developed and continues to develop its own musical identity, including a rich diversity of musical forms and genres, specific rhythmic patterns and regional instruments.
We can divide South American musical styles into four different historical stages:
- Native or Pre-Hispanic (up to 1533)
- Colonial (1535-1824)
- Republican times (1821 through the XX century)
- Contemporary (XXI century)