Javier Farias | Composer & Guitarist

Sergio and Odair Assad, the celebrated guitar duo, will premiere the work ELOGIO DE LA RAZA, a new Guitar Concerto written by Javier Farias, featuring the YOA Orchestra of the Americas conducted by Carlos Miguel Prieto. The premiere will be in Brazil on August 1 and 2, 2017.

Commissioned by the Fromm Music Foundation of Harvard University, ELOGIO DE LA RAZA (Praise to the Indigenous and African roots) is a two movement work composed for two guitars and orchestra in homage to the Peruvian writer, Mario Vargas Llosa (b. 1936.)

The piece features two very representative rhythms from Peru: The Siku, an indigenous rhythm from the Andes and the Lando, widely considered the genesis of all black music and dance in Peru. In order to be more authentic to these traditions, I have also included two characteristic percussion instruments that belong to these two peoples: Pezuñas, an Andean bracelet or rattle- like instrument made of goat hoofs, and the Cajón Peruano, a drum fashioned from fruit boxes that was created by African slaves who were forbidden to play their tambores by the Spanish

Vargas Llosa’s narratives consistently refer to the black and Andean experience in his country and the social inequality and racial prejudices that they still face today.

This composition is part of the project Seis Miradas por Latinoamerica (Six Perspectives on Latin America.)