Quimantu

Review

Southbank Centre 2011

If you want an introduction to Latin American folk music, look no further than Quimantu. A band that was formed many moons ago in 1981 by the Chilean musician and composer Mauricio Venegas-Astorga. This multi talented ensemble of musician’s have produced some enchanting songs over the years and the performance at the SouthBank was no different. This would be my first live performance of Quimantu but have listened to their first album countless times over the years, especially on long car journeys to Spain with my parents.

Quimantu started the evening with Mauricio Venegas’s arrangement of Paganini’s Caprice No. 24 in A minor which is the theme song of a TV programme called the SouthBank Show, a bit of musical wit which seemed completely and utterly lost on the audience,  which was a shame as it was a nice interpretation of a classic bit of music. Unfortunately the audience seemed to be taking an age to liven up, must have been the Wednesday blues.

 

The musical show with projected images of Latin American heroes as well as quotes, pictures of Chilean and Latin American street art and not forgetting the famous Cordillera, (no self respecting Chileno would ever do a slide show without the Andes mountain range), set a nice back drop to this selection of Latin American Folk Music.

Mauricio took great pride in explaining that he collected the images together as well as creating his own instrument which has to be said sounded amazing. There were some beautiful moments such as Mauricio introducing his daughter to sing on stage as well as some well side step incidents of confusion which were handled with humour, honesty and skill, like the not having a set-list, therefore not knowing what song was coming up next, when he eventually had set-list he did not have his glasses so could not see the set-list and therefore picked up the wrong instrument for one song. All of this added to a very confident and relaxed and Witty demeanour of the band on stage and in particular Mauricio, as Quimantu cycled through their repertoire of entrancing song’s and some 30 instruments it was clear to see that they love what they do, the real shame of the evening was that no matter how hard they tried the audience at the South Bank was as dead as it could be. After the interval and maybe it was the wine but only then did people join in, as Quimantu enjoy their listeners to participate by dancing or clapping sadly it was not meant to be, but that was until the very last song where four women at the front and two children behind me set aside their inhibitions and danced for the last song, which was the very least that this majestic band of musicians deserved.

This truly was a master class in world folk music which stretched from la cordillera, through the Amazon all the way up to Cuba before reaching the Celtic highlands. Now that’s a journey worth exploring! A musical History of Latin America!

Band member’s

Rachel Pantin

Laura Venegas-Rojas

Carlos Fuentes (percussion)

Mauricio Venegas-Astorga (Director)

Jon Davie (Bass)

Yuri Betancourt

Incoming search terms:

• carlos fuentes london
• mauricio venegas
• carlos fuentes london uk musician
• carlos fuentes musician in london
• carlos fuentes percussion london