The Cultural Positioning of The Banda de Músicos in The Central Andes of Peru PDF

The Cultural Positioning of the Banda de Músicos in the Central Andes of Peru
Author(s): JOSHUA KATZ-ROSENE

Source: Latin American Music Review / Revista de Música Latinoamericana, Vol. 35, No. 2
(FALL / WINTER 2014), pp. 260-288
Published by: University of Texas Press
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JOSHUA KATZ-ROSENE
The Cultural Positioning of the Banda de Músicos

in the Central Andes of Peru
ABSTRACT: The banda de músicos (brass band) is ubiquitous in the Andes. Researc
have documented the bandas displacement of traditional ensembles and shown ho
dissemination has been a source of tension, while others have argued that the en
represents an element of change that is grounded in tradition. I assess the cultural pos
ing of the banda in the central Andes of Peru from the perspective of musicians' stat
regarding their repertoire and claims of versatility, and through the imagery used i
motional materials. I evaluate how the music performed at patron-saint fiestas fits w
ticulated categories such as central Andean folclor, the music of Peru, and foreign ge
Considering the region's strong sense of identity and openness to outside influences,
trate how the banda mediates between different cultural positions.
■ ■ ■
keywords: Central Andes, Peru, brass bands, folklore, r
RESUMEN: La banda de músicos es ubicua en los A

observado que la banda ha desplazado a conjuntos t
difusión ha sido una causa de conflicto, mientras otro
sentan procesos de cambio que están enraizados en la
mos la postura cultural de las bandas en la sierra cen
las declaraciones de los músicos sobre sus repertorios
ensambles, y por vía de un análisis de las imágenes us
Revisamos cómo la música tocada por bandas en fies
pronunciadas por los músicos, como folclor del centr
tranjeros. Teniendo en cuenta la fuerte identidad reg
fluencias foráneas, demostramos que la banda modera
■ ■ ■
palabras clave: Sierra Central, Perú, banda de músi

patronales
Although for most people abroad the panpipes, quena flute, and charango
are the instruments most strongly associated with Andean music, brass
Latin American Music Review, Volume 35, Number 2, Fall/Winter 2014

© 2014 by the University of Texas Press
DOI: 10.7560/LAMR35204
The Cultural Positioning of the Banda de Músicos ■ 261
bands are now one of the most common musical ensembles in the An-
dean region. Bandas de músicos , as brass bands are called in Peru, are
widespread in music cultures that stretch the entire length of the Peru-
vian Andes, and they are important ensembles in many of the coastal
cities and lowland jungle regions. Professional bandas have become indis-
pensable to Andean communal festivals and have been a vehicle for musi-
cal change over the past century, introducing new instruments, styles of
music, and aesthetic considerations. Having replaced smaller rural and
indigenous ensembles for performance in many ritual contexts, bandas
have altered the sound of traditional Andean music, which is still a vital
component of their repertoire. Indeed, several scholars researching An-
dean music toward the end of the twentieth century have documented the
banda's supplanting of ensembles that were considered more traditional.
In the northern department of Piura, for instance, Virginia Yep (2002,
209) noted that " bandas monopolize the role of music-makers in all fies-
tas, displacing other forms of musical expression." Similarly, Manuel Ráez
Retamozo (2004, 24) wrote of Cusco Department:
[I]n recent decades there has been a gradual displacement of traditional

instruments in favor of more modern ones. For example, the Indig-
enous banda de guerra , made up of quenas and tinyas [small Andean
drum] of different sizes, is being replaced by the banda de música.
Elsewhere, Ráez Retamozo (1993) observed the growing popularity of

bandas and the resulting decline of indigenous instruments that had for-
merly accompanied the principal dances and rituals in the Coica Valley,
Arequipa.
Researchers have also shown how the banda' s rise has been a source
of social strain in some areas. Gisela Cánepa Koch, for one, has re-
ported on the increasing use of bandas for the qhapaq ch'unchu dance in
Paucartambo, Cusco. Illustrating how this development caused a rift be-
tween comparsas (dance troupes) "with an eagerness for modernization"
and townsfolk seeking to maintain tradition, she cited an incident in
which the public obliged a comparsa that had wanted to switch over to ac-
companiment from a brass band to continue dancing to the traditional
banda de guerra (Cánepa Koch 1996, 463). In his study of the fiesta of San
Bartolomé in Potosí, in neighboring Bolivia, Roy Youdale (1996) strongly
criticized what he viewed as the progressively more dominant role of in-
creasingly professionalized bandas at the fiesta. He decried the fact that
dance groups were tending to contract these ensembles from outside com-
munities, thus creating a disconnect between two components - music
and dance - of a holistic ritual and reducing the music to mere rented ac-
companiment. According to Youdale (1996, 341), this growing separation
262 ■ JOSHUA KATZ-ROSENE
between dance and music is "the antithesis of the Andean conception of

fiesta music," although the extent to which Youdale's informants shared
his anxieties was not clear. Youdale also cited the replacement of quenas ,
sīkus (panpipes), and pinkullos (duct flutes) by brass instruments and the
unorthodox use of bandas for particular rituals as examples of profound
changes in the festival.
Although they have not ignored the potential tensions accompanying
the banda and the foreign musical influences it has introduced to An-
dean culture, Raúl Romero and Román Robles Mendoza have been more
optimistic about the banda' s effect on traditional music in their regions
of study. For Robles Mendoza (2007), even if the indigenous pito (trans-
verse flute) and caja (drum) configuration has effectively disappeared from
the fiestas in Ancash Department, where it used to enjoy prominence,
so too has a much-expanded ensemble replaced the traditional banda
that emerged in the early twentieth century. Rather than seeing musical
change as "corrosive," Robles Mendoza views it as an essential counter-
part to continuity and underscores the adaptability of Andean expressive
modes. For his part, Romero suggests that in the Peruvian central An-
des, the popularity of bandas, orquestas típicas (which I describe later), and
the more recent emergence of chicha music (a fusion of the Andean wayno
with Colombian cumbia, performed on electric instruments) are responses
to the need for modernizing change that are ultimately grounded in re-
gional musical traditions. As central contributors to the dynamic fiesta
system that has "caused an upsurge of more intense traditional musical
activity in the region," bandas have actually bolstered the performance of
traditional music (Romero 1990, 24).
In this article, I focus on the cultural positioning of the banda de
músicos in one particular region - the Mantaro Valley, in the central An-
des of Peru - at the beginning of the twenty-first century. This is a region
where the banda has been characterized as a type of musical expression
that advances cultural change while remaining rooted in local tradition.
It is also a region whose inhabitants have developed a remarkably strong
sense of regional pride in their mestizo identity and in the customs they
have claimed as their distinct cultural heritage, at the same time that they
have unabashedly absorbed influences from outside the region. This ar-
ticle aims to demonstrate how banda musicians' own discourse concern-
ing the scope of their repertoire corresponds to the characterization here
of the banda' s role in central Andean culture, as well as how it fits with
the broader range of cultural outlooks identified for the region's people. In
this respect, this study represents an effort to build on the seminal publi-
cations of Romero (1990, 2001) on the wider music culture of the Mantaro
Valley.
In assessing the banda' s contribution to musical change in the Andes,

Romero (1998, 483) has aptly remarked:
One of the factors in [brass bands'] expansion is that they are more elas-
tic in repertoire than are the regional ensembles. They can play any
musical genre - cumbia, marinera , pasodoble, tropical music, and even
the latest popular music hit - and this versatility adds to their popular-
ity among younger people.
From this perspective, the banàa1 s musical versatility is oriented toward

the incorporation of musics with origins outside of Andean regional cul-
tures. This interpretation is partly consistent with the view that banda mu-
sicians in the Mantaro Valley espouse when talking about their repertoire.
As I will describe here, many musicians assert that their ensembles freely
adopt musics from other regions of Peru, the national ambit, and abroad.
And yet most musicians also articulate an unwavering commitment to a
category of music they refer to as folclor - the local and regional compo-
nent of the repertoire. In my analysis of practitioner- directed discourse in
the central Andean banda scene, I highlight statements by musicians in
which this multifocal orientation - toward regional folclor, "national" mu-
sic, and beyond - is evident, as well as how this discourse manifests in the
imagery used in banda promotional materials. Furthermore, I show how
the apparent tension that arises from laying claim to deep regional roots
on the one hand, and a sense of cosmopolitanism on the other, plays out
in the reputation-making schemes for bandas in this area.
In the latter part of the article, I take stock of how the music performed
in the course of patron-saint fiestas in various towns in the Mantaro Valley
lines up with musicians' expressed conceptions of their repertoire and ver-
satility. This discussion will show the prominence of regional traditional
musics in the fiesta context and offer examples of the processes through
which banda musicians negotiate with the public to introduce new styles
of music. Although I suggest that there are certain ways in which the
broad musical-geographic categories articulated by musicians can be dis-
tinguished musically and by other aspects of performance, I point out
other factors that complicate the formulation of a simplistic genre classifi-
cation. As I outline several key genres that bandas perform, I track cases in
which the banda has in fact usurped musical responsibilities from other
formerly prominent ensembles in the valley. Needless to say, it is crucial
to document the substantive changes that the banda has brought about
as it has taken on a more dominant role in Andean music cultures over
the past century. Nevertheless, I am seeking in this study to demonstrate
that its role in Andean culture is somewhat more complex than has been
portrayed by researchers who have highlighted the erasure of traditional

ensembles, musics, and values in the banda' s wake.
I take terminological cues for my discussion of the banda repertoire
from the statements made by musicians themselves in discussions with
me during my fieldwork in 2007. Musicians used the term folclor, or
sometimes the more specific folclor del centro (folklore of the center), to de-
note the musics that they saw as distinct symbols of central Andean cul-
ture. Some musicians also referred to the "folclor of Peru" or the "folclor
of our country," categories that embrace musics from other Andean re-
gions and styles with national breadth. According to Romero (2001, 154),
the term folclor Wanka (referring to Wanka ethnic identity) has also circu-
lated in the valley's lexicon. Anthropologist Zoila Mendoza (2000, 48) has
noted that people in the town of San Jerónimo, Cusco, used the compara-
ble categories folclor jeronimiano (from San Jéronimo) and folclor cusqueño
(from Cusco Department) "to refer to local and regional repertoires of 'tra-
ditions.'" Like dance-troupe members in San Jerónimo, banda musicians
in the Mantaro Valley were, in my view, invoking ideas about cultural ex-
pressions with authentic regional roots through their habitual employ-
ment of the concept of folclor. However, further investigation on how this
word gained currency in the central Andes would help clarify the extent
to which its usage by working-class musicians there connotes the poli-
tics of selecting local musical forms for staged performances of folklore;
Mendoza (2000, 48-65; 2006, 24, 30) has described how middle-class in-
tellectuals in the city of Cusco directed such a process of "folklorization"
beginning in the early twentieth century.
While regional folclor was the musical category of which musicians
spoke most consistently, its salience implies that musics that do not fall
under this label are categorically different. As mentioned, musicians did
explicitly reference the category of national folclor ; but their terminology
was more varied when talking about what did not constitute folclor ; they
talked about music from "other places," "other countries," or they simply
named particular genres with international origins or associations. Banda
musicians never applied the label "modern" to any grouping of genres in
their repertoire. In fact, the only time they specifically referred to any type
of music as novel was to emphasize the need to "renew" the regional folclor
by composing new pieces in folclor styles.1 As such, I have opted not to ap-
ply the traditional-modern dichotomy here as a central concept for under-
standing the diversity of the banda repertoire. I am also influenced in this
regard by Thomas Turino's (2003, 56-58) caution to scholars to avoid nat-
uralizing the teleological assumptions in the discourses of modernity and
globalism, in which Euro-American cultural and economic values are pre-
sented as points of destination for the rest of the world, by uncritically re-
producing the terminology from these discourses in their writing. This is

not to say that I dismiss the possibility that ideas about being modern are at
play when banda musicians express interest in playing transnational mu-
sics or place images from international cities on their business cards, only
that they did not communicate with me in these terms.2 In this respect,
I acknowledge the important recent work by scholars who have tracked
the conscious elaboration of "locally experienced" modernities (Bigenho
2002, 167) by Andean peoples from various social classes and living in dif-
ferent sectors of the rural-urban spectrum (Ritter 2006, 70; Romero 2001,
23; Tucker 2013). 3 Their writing has challenged essentialist notions about
Andean culture and has informed my own thinking. It is my hope that
the present study of the Andean banda de músicos - an ensemble that ap-
pears to confound received conceptions of the traditional and the modern
on many levels - can offer a modest contribution to this literature.
Brass Bands in Andean Peru
The first brass bands in Peru, which were modeled after European mil-
itary bands, were integrated into the Peruvian armed forces in the nine-
teenth century, and descendants of these organizations are among the
country's most highly regarded ensembles today. The role of bandas in all
divisions of the military as entry points to music education appears to have
been crucial to the formation of the first rural ensembles. Conscription of
Andean peasants in the early part of the twentieth century was a key fac-
tor in this respect, since many of them learned to play brass instruments
during their service and later introduced these instruments to their native
communities (Romero 1985; Ráez Retamozo 2004). Texts from the first
decades of the twentieth century demonstrate the gradual adoption of the
military band model in rural villages and its assimilation by both Indian
and mestizo sectors (Castro Pozo [1924] 1979; ďHarcourt and ďHarcourt
1925; Mejia Xesspe 1923). It is of particular interest for the discussion that
follows to note that even at this early stage of development, the banda's
repertoire encompassed a wide selection of musics. Writing on field re-
search conducted between 1912 and 1919, the French couple Raoul and
Marguerite ďHarcourt (1925, 199) noted:
There are brass bands in Peru and Bolivia that have nothing to envy of
village bands in [France]. . . . [T] heir repertoire still consists of - apart
from European and North American elements - the very typical local
popular pieces. Such a band can easily switch from a fox-trot or a polka
to a yaraví or a kashwa, and this is true even in the important cities,
such as the capital.
Robles Mendoza (2000) has provided a comprehensive account of the

proliferation of Andean bandas in the southern part of Ancash Depart-
ment, beginning with the founding of the first ensemble in the town of
Chiquián in 1913. Its creation was facilitated by a group of well-to-do men
who could afford to purchase instruments and had the necessary con-
tacts to hire a maestro (band leader) to provide musical instruction. Once
the Chiquián band began performing at patron-saint fiestas in the area,
campesinos in neighboring villages were inspired to form their own en-
sembles. By mid-century, bandas were fixtures at communal fiestas in the
region, supporting the existence of a growing number of groups.
It is likely that the central Andes experienced a pattern of early develop-
ment similar to the one observed in Ancash. The earliest banda in Acolla,
a town that lies just north of the Mantaro Valley proper, is cited in the
first years of the twentieth century (Romero 1985, 250), and we know that
one of the maestros who had been instrumental in the founding of the
southern Ancash bands was in fact a native of Jauja, a town at the valley's
northern edge (Robles Mendoza 2000, 97). A decree published in the of-
ficial state newspaper El Peruano on September 27, 1911, announced that
instruments destined for the banda de músicos in the central Andean city
of Tarma would be exempt from import duties. Sources from the middle
of the century help us trace the banda' s integration into the valley's cul-
tural fabric and provide evidence that the repertoire we still hear associ-
ated today with certain functions had by then already been standardized:
i bandas played marches on Independence Day, marineras for bullfights,
and waynos at patron-saint fiestas (Arguedas 1953, 124; Bonilla del Valle
1946). We begin to see the entry of musics from Latin American cosmo-
politan circuits into the banda's repertoire by way of the tastes of return-
ing migrants. In a 1964 study discussing patron-saint fiestas in the town
of Sicaya, for example, we learn that "The orquesta or banda plays waynos
most of the time, although when sicainos from Lima are present, valses ,
boleros , and guarachas are played" (Escobar 1964, 202).
While the early village groups numbered around ten to twelve musi-
cians, the average size of bandas in the central highlands today is twenty to
twenty-five wind players and four or five percussionists. Instruments not
present in the early groups - saxophones, trombones, and sousaphones -
were added, and existing instrumental sections expanded (trumpets, bari-
tones, and clarinets). New percussion instruments also supplemented
the original accompaniment of platillos (handheld cymbals), taróla (snare
drum), and bombo (bass drum), so as to facilitate performance of foreign
genres. This augmentation has accompanied changing musical aesthet-
ics, as a preference for louder and thicker sounds has become a principal
consideration for fiesta sponsors and participants (Romero 1999).
Bandas and Regional Identity in the Mantaro Valley
In the introduction I presented diverging scholarly perspectives on the

banda' s place in Andean culture. Such differences of opinion, which may
be in some measure informed by the outlooks of local consultants, can be
attributed in part to the emergence, in different regions, of distinct pat-
terns of ethno-cultural identification and socioeconomic relations. In the
Peruvian Andes, struggles over such elements as musical style, instru-
mentation, and the language used in song have been particularly intense
in regions and periods where tensions between an emergent sector of up-
wardly mobile mestizos and those who identified - or, more often, were
identified by others - as indios, have been most pronounced. As for the
Mantaro Valley, a process of mestizaje largely homogenized its ethnic and
cultural makeup early in the twentieth century. Increased contact with
Lima at the beginning of the century exposed the valley's peasants to cap-
italism and new cultural influences, allowing them to appropriate some of
these social and economic modes while retaining ties to indigenous cus-
toms (Romero 2001).
One must also look to conditions dating back to the sixteenth century
in order to gain a better understanding of the strong regional identity of
the Mantaro Valley's residents. To summarize, Spanish colonists forged
a strategic alliance against the Inca Empire with the Wanka ethnic group
that had populated the central highlands in pre-Hispanic times. Because
the Wankas had cooperated with the Spanish, and on account of the lat-
terà greater interest in exploiting resources elsewhere, the local popula-
tion was generally permitted to retain ownership of their lands during the
colonial period, a situation that contrasted with other Andean regions in
which Indian lands were expropriated. Access to land, along with proxim-
ity to markets for agricultural production in the capital, ensured that the
Mantaro Valley's mestizos achieved generally higher levels of prosperity
relative to peasants in other areas, and this has led to a strong sense of re-
gional pride on the part of its inhabitants, as well as its migrants in Lima.
Wanka identity continues to be a unifying symbol and serves to differ-
entiate the region culturally from the capital and other Andean regions
(Romero 2001, 13-33).
This trajectory of ethnic, cultural, and socioeconomic configurations
provides one layer of context within which banda performance and its cul-
tural positioning in the valley must be seen. For one, an assured regional
identity whose boundaries are partly defined by traditional practices
deemed to be unique to and representative of the area clearly underpins
banda musicians' understanding of and pride in the idea of central An-
dean folclor. At the same time, contemporary musicians' interest in forms
associated with spaces outside the region is best understood in light of the
historical openness that some population sectors of the valley have had to
musical innovation. The second point to be made about the relationship
between bandas and regional identity has to do with the performance style
in which all wind instruments play the main melody, more or less in uni-
son. This musical approach is the same one used by the orquesta típica , an
ensemble composed of several saxophones, one or two clarinets, a harp,
and a violin, which is considered the representative ensemble of the cen-
tral Andes. Orquestas and the star singers they sometimes accompanied
established this melodic practice as the characteristic central Andean, or
Wanka, style for playing regional genres through wide dissemination on
records and radio since the 1960s (Romero 2001, 120-21). Bandas in the
valley adhere to this technique for the regional repertoire, and this dis-
tinguishes them from brass bands in other areas.4 Third, unlike in other
Andean regions, performance of banda music in the valley need not be
problematized in terms of ethnic inequalities between the musicians and
their employers (see Romero 2001, 83; Turino 1998, 212; 1993; Mendoza
2006, 23). In the Mantaro Valley, the banda de músicos is woven into the
dominant mestizo culture that took form in the early twentieth century; its
music is performed by mestizos, for mestizos. Nonetheless, the employer-
employee relationship can sometimes be fraught by class asymmetries, a
situation that may be intensifying as a result of the increasingly promi-
nent role in fiestas of middle-class valley natives and their descendants liv-
ing in Lima.
The last consideration stemming from the valley's sociocultural com-
position relates to the fact - communicated to me by several people during
my fieldwork and widely documented in research throughout the Peru-
vian Andes (Cánepa Koch 1996, 463; Ráez Retamozo 1993, 290) - that en-
sembles are supposed to elevate the prestige of the fiesta sponsor who has
hired them. Especially in rural areas where indigenous identity was still
strong in the late twentieth century, the growing preference for a large
banda , to the detriment of smaller and more traditional ensembles, often
appeared to be based on the former's status as a symbol of higher social
class and modernity. The banda7 s loud volume also offered fiesta spon-
sors an advantage over smaller ensembles and even large indigenous wind
consorts in the tacit competition for the production of celebratory noise
that operates in the fiesta context. While in the past only the highest spon-
sors contracted bandas, the ensemble has become requisite for almost
all fiesta sponsors in southern Ancash (Robles Mendoza 2000, 280-81),
and is one of two acceptable options in the Mantaro Valley, the other be-
ing the orquesta típica.5 In most of the sizable towns of this region, the
banda itself does not stand out as a marker of high social status in com-
parison to smaller ensembles, as I suspect may have been the case in the
past. Rather, along with factors that will be discussed here, the sponsor's
prestige is dependent on the size and power of a particular banda as com-
pared to other ensembles of the same type, and this is true as well for the
orquesta típica (Romero 2001, 73-76).
Today, brass bands are thriving in the Mantaro Valley. Instrumentalists
in dozens of professional ensembles derive a primary source of income
from musical activities, and the region's intense fiesta system actually
draws musicians from other areas to its main urban centers of Huancayo
and Jauja.6 Moreover, the valley's most famous bandas are still based in
these cities, unlike other Andean regions, whose emigrants in Lima have
set up groups that have surpassed those from the hometowns in prom-
inence. Established ensembles have an intense performance schedule,
traveling from one fiesta to another during the busy carnival and patronal
fiesta seasons, sometimes playing every day for more than a month. In the
Mantaro Valley, the great success of the banda is undoubtedly linked to the
strong mestizo identity that was established early in the twentieth century
and that continues to assert itself on the national scene. However, I do
not want to overstate the role of the central Andes' specific sociocultural
dynamics in contributing to the banda' s strong reception there, for brass
bands have found wide acceptance in a large swath of the Andean area.
Folclor and Versatility, Promotional Imagery, and Banda Reputations
Communal fiestas are the banda' s principal opportunities for performance

in the Mantaro Valley. The yearlong cycle of carnivals, religious festivities
(patron-saint fiestas, Holy Week, Christmas), and political occasions (mu-
nicipal anniversaries, Independence Day) in towns throughout the region
provides considerable amounts of work for bandas from the valley and out-
lying areas. Additionally, bandas are sometimes hired for weddings, birth-
days, baptisms, funerals, anniversaries, and banda competitions.
The wide array of performance contexts in the valley itself influences
bandas to become proficient at playing a vast selection of music for differ-
ent occasions; travel to different regions of Peru for performances is an-
other factor spurring an ensemble's drive toward versatility. Most groups
from the Mantaro Valley have performed in Lima, and some have also
traveled to nearby towns like Huaraz and Huancavelica, as well as to the
central jungle area to the east. More established groups have gone further
afield to the major cities of Trujillo, Cusco, and Ayacucho, and have even
played in neighboring countries. The element of travel demands that an
ensemble be able to execute a wide variety of traditional repertoire. This
fact was illustrated to me one afternoon when I was speaking with mem-
bers of the Filarmónica Vilca at their Huancayo office; a man came in to
inquire about contracting the group for a fiesta and wanted to know if the
band could play certain waynos from the town of Huancavelica (in neigh-
boring Huancavelica Department). In this instance, the musicians were
already familiar with the repertoire, but a member of the ensemble told
me that for cases in which they are not, they might transcribe pieces from
recordings provided by the prospective employer.
The way musicians speak about the diversity of their repertoire pro-
vides much insight into the cultural position they claim for themselves as
"cultivators" of the valley's folclor and as purveyors of national and foreign
musics. In conversations with me, musicians consistently and proudly
highlighted their roles as exponents of styles from an outwardly radiating
series of "nested" geographical categories - local, regional, national, and
international (Turino 2003, 53). For example, when I asked an experienced
bajista (baritone player) to compare the central Andean banda style with
that of Puno, he zeroed in on regional genres as forming the core of his
ensemble's repertoire: "As far as what we cultivate, it is mainly the folclor
of the central highlands: the wayno, the muliza, the huaylas, the santiago.
Those are the fundamental styles we preserve." But in the same interview
he also alluded to the broader geographical-cultural scope at which he and
his colleagues aim: "We feel proud to preserve, to develop these traditions
from the different towns of the central Andes, from the Mantaro Valley,
and from Peru." As I discuss in the next part of the article, I view banda
musicians' declarations that their repertoire includes the "traditions of
Peru" (or the "folclor of our country") as signifying their knowledge of mu-
sics from other Andean regions and other forms popular at the national
level, as well as fitting more broadly with their overall emphasis on musi-
cal adaptability.
Versatility is one element around which the friendly competition be-
tween bandas in the valley is organized. Most musicians I spoke with re-
garded musical diversification as something that would put their own
group at an advantage over other ensembles, and many of them under-
scored the non-Peruvian styles that their ensembles performed. One mu-
sician expressed the need to expand his banda's repertoire as such:
The music has to vary. Playing only folclor doesn't help [our] competi-
tiveness. Since others play popular music then we also have to be com-
petitive ... in other words, play everything. . . . We cultivate the folclor
of our country, as well as from other places; from other countries, too -
at least some pieces.
Another example of how interband competition promotes the search

for new additions to the repertoire arose when members of the Banda
Continental discussed with me the low-key rivalry that had existed for
some time between their group and the Banda Tupac Amaru. The mu-
sicians from the Banda Continental considered themselves to be on par

with, or better than, the more famous Tupac Amaru as far as performance
of regional folclor was concerned, but they expressed interest in obtaining
North American jazz arrangements from me, as they felt that this would
give them an edge over their competitor. Many commercial pan-Latin
American styles, such as salsa, Latin jazz, and bolero, as well as pieces
from Western art music, which go by the name of obras (literally, "works"),
are of much interest to musicians themselves but are not as prominent in
the repertoire. Speaking with me about his ensemble's repertoire, a vet-
eran musician from one banda emphasized just these types of foreign
elements:
Within our repertoire we cultivate the folclor of the Center [central An-
dean region]; we cultivate Afro- Cuban music, rock music, pieces by the
great composers such as Schubert, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky; we play op-
eras, classical works. The musicians in my symphonic band are pre-
pared for any type of event.
However, immediately preceding this statement, the same musician

described the musical contents of the group's latest CD as "that which is
native from here, from Peru; more than anything from the Center, from
Huancayo."
The cultural self-positioning that banda musicians articulate in dis-
cussing their musical repertoire is paralleled in other dimensions of their
practitioner-directed discourse. The imagery featured in banda promo-
tional materials, such as CDs, video CDs (VCDs), business cards, and
posters, makes associations to similar geographic- cultural categories as
those referenced by the musicians quoted already. A photo of the ensem-
ble in full uniform is almost always front and center on these items, and
the background for the group picture is often a landmark in the banda's
hometown or a picturesque regional landscape (figure 1). If the ensemble
has traveled afar, a photo taken during the trip can be used, and in other
cases images of recognizable locations in other parts of Peru or abroad,
and even flashy cityscapes, are digitally edited in as background (figure 2).
According to several producers of banda video recordings with whom I
spoke, it is important for fans (and prospective employers) of a particu-
lar group who view the video clips to see it performing in its local en-
vironment; producers make it a point to take many shots of the natural
scenery in an ensemble's home region. Thus, many of the clips on one of
Banda Tupac Amaru's VCDs are shot in and around the city of Huancayo,
their home base, including segments taped at the Parque de la Identidad
Wanka (Park of Wanka Identity). At the same time, when the ensemble
traveled to Cusco for performances, their producer took the opportunity to
figure i . Front cover of a Banda Tupac Amaru video CD.
send a videographer with them to film them in the famed city and to cap-
ture images of the group with Machu Picchu as a backdrop. The Banda
Juventud Acollina's double-sided business card offers a good example of
the symbolism ensembles seek to portray in their imagery: one side shows
them superimposed on the recognizable landscape of Machu Picchu, a na-
tional landmark; the other on a background of skyscrapers in the business

district of São Paulo, South America's largest city (figure 3).
The associations made in banda promotional materials, then, corre-
spond to the general categories evident in musicians' conceptualizations
of the scope of their repertoire. Local and regional images remain fo-
cal points of video recordings and business card photos. Yet, where pos-
sible, ensembles attempt to identify themselves as possessing national
breadth and international reach, whether through real travel experiences
or through a more symbolic type of "travel" achieved through digital
graphic editing. In most cases, bandas seem to attempt to balance claims
to local resonance, the prestige of national symbols, and urban cachet in
figure 2 . Front cover of a Sinfornia Acoilina VCD.
F i g u R e 3 . Banda Juventud Acollina's business card.
their promotional presentations. I read the inclusion of images from out-

side a banda' s home region in these items as serving to assert a group's -
and by extension its members' - claims to a sense of cosmopolitanism.
These strategies are similar, perhaps, to the one taken by the small ru-
ral community of Coica, Ayacucho, to give itself the nickname "Ciudad
Luz" (City of Light) in an attempt to draw associations with cosmopolitan
Paris (Ritter 2006, 78). In fact, the opening track on a VCD of the Banda
Sinfonía Acollina shows the group superimposed onto a photograph of the
Eiffel Tower.
The links made to foreign cities and symbols in banda promotional im-
agery speak to the importance of reaching the status of an "international"
ensemble. Romero (2001, 136) has pointed out that for Andean musicians,
"one of the principal honors to be given to a performer is to mention his
or her 'international' reputation. This credential comes after the national
fame and is the final and higher sign of esteem that can be given to a
public performer." I observed this type of valuation play out when, at one
fiesta, some local onlookers said they thought one banda was better than
another simply because it had performed in Bolivia. Some bandas from the
Mantaro Valley obtain international status by actually performing outside
Peru, and this achievement becomes concretized in the group's full name.
A business card for the group named Internacional Super Sonora Acollina
conspicuously announces their international connections: the ensemble's
picture is superimposed onto an image of the Christ the Redeemer statue
in Rio de Janeiro, and the two flags featured on the card are of Bolivia and
Brazil - the Peruvian flag does not make an appearance.
Although it is evident that bandas feel that they stand to gain from ad-
vertising their international status or affirming their cosmopolitan links,
there are other contradictory criteria by which a group's reputation is
judged in the Mantaro Valley. Three bandas that came up frequently in
conversations with both musicians and nonmusicians as the most "fa-
mous" in the region were the Banda Show Internacional Tupac Amaru,
Banda Monumental Huancayo, and Sinfonía Junín de Jauja. When asked
what gave these ensembles a good reputation, most musicians, persons
involved with hiring them, and regular community members mentioned
that they had been around longer, although some people also commented
on their musical skills. An ensemble like Tupac Amaru, which is the most
highly regarded in the region, is unique in that it can make claims to both
longevity and an international reputation. The negotiation of such a po-
sition can be tricky, as is demonstrated by the messages conveyed on its
business card. Here, their international standing is contrasted with the
moniker "Patrimonio Cultural de la Gran Nación Huanca" (Cultural Heri-
tage of the Great Wanka Nation), a title bestowed on them by the provincial
municipality of Huancayo in 1998 ("Reseña histórica" 2007).7 Moreover,
the group makes a point of publicizing its founding date (1974), an un-
common feature for most banda business cards, which in this case further
stresses their standing as an integral part of the region's cultural history.
However, the photograph chosen for this important promotional tool was
taken at the iconic archeological complex of Sacsayhuamán, just outside
the city of Cusco, making connections to symbols of national heritage.
A comparable juxtaposition occurs in one of the clips on Tupac Amaru's
VCD, in which their recorded arrangement of the song "Walk of Life," by
the British rock outfit Dire Straits, becomes the soundtrack to scenes shot
at the aforementioned Parque de la Identidad Wanka.8
In summary, banda musicians from different ensembles in the Mantaro
Valley emphasize their acquired and desired musical versatility; they con-
sistently stress that the folclor of the central highlands constitutes the core
of their repertoire, but also that they are able to perform music consid-
ered folclor of the nation as well as from abroad. The drive toward versatil-
ity may stem from the practical fact that being able to perform the genres
associated with many different contexts in the valley and neighboring re-
gions will increase paid performance opportunities, but it also reflects an
interest in nonlocal and popular genres on the part of musicians and cer-
tain members of their audience. This orientation is also evident in banda
promotional items, where we find, in congruence with the categories ver-
balized by musicians, imagery from the local, regional, and national do-
mains, as well as images of high-profile metropolises and other symbols
of cosmopolitanism. Claims upon international status and the demonstra-
tion of an ensemble's rootedness in the regional culture are both criteria
by which bandas are judged. To demonstrate how Mantaro Valley bandas
negotiate these seemingly discrepant dispositions through live perfor-
mance in the valley's fiestas, I now turn to an examination of key elements
of the banda' s repertoire.
The Central Andean Banda Repertoire
In the following pages, I describe the main genres that make up the cen-
tral Andean banda' s varied repertoire and relate them to my observations
of banda performances at patron-saint fiestas in the Mantaro Valley. By
providing historical information, highlighting cultural and geographic as-
sociations, describing specific contexts for performance within the fiesta,
referring to frequency of performance, and pointing to some indicators
of reception, I wish to evaluate how the music performed in the course of
multiple-day fiestas might be seen to square with the broad categories set
forth by musicians as well as with their narratives of versatility. What mu-
sics are banda musicians referring to when they proclaim that their en-
sembles trade in such categories as folclor del centro, folclor del Perú , popular
music, and music of other countries, and how do they handle such diver-
sity in the fiesta setting? Discussion of these points can help us trace the
historical processes by which musics from foreign sources were, and con-
tinue to be, adopted and integrated into the region's traditions. In adding
to this an examination of certain aspects of performance, such as musical
texture and instrumentation, I want to also consider how different genres
might correspond sonically to the aforementioned musical-geographic cat-
egories. Where relevant, I point out other ensembles or instruments with
which some genres have traditionally been associated, since the banda' s
appropriation of these forms constitutes another important angle through
which to view trajectories of musical change.
At the heart of the category of folclor del centro are the genres that are
strongly identified with the central Andean region - the muliza , huaylas,
and santiago - as well as the numerous genres associated with dance
dramas and other local rituals. The wayno, commonly described as the
most widespread song and dance form in the Peruvian Andes, is at the
very core of this grouping, although it also crosses into other categories,
since bandas in the Mantaro Valley play local, regional, and extraregional
i vaynos. The manner in which bandas play waynos, mulizas, huaylas, and
santiagos is quite distinctive: as described already, all wind instruments
play the main melody in unison, accompanied by the basic percussion sec-
tion consisting of two tarólas , bombo, and platillos. I find that the phrase
"wide unison," which Turino (1993, 48) applies to Aymara wind ensem-
bles in southern Peru, fittingly describes the melodic texture produced by
varying levels of intonation and slight overlaps in attack between a banda' s
instruments - a performance style that hints at heterophony - when play-
ing these key regional genres. The musical ensemble that is most closely
associated with the Mantaro Valley, the orquesta típica, also creates melo-
dies in this fashion, setting the ideal approach for Wanka folclor.
Pieces played in the style that banda musicians in the Mantaro Valley
call cashua are labeled as waynos on recordings by bandas from other re-
gions. The main difference between waynos and cashuas is that the latter
are arranged in a polyphonic manner. There are cashuas that come from
the central highlands, but many of those that I recorded in performance
were arrangements of waynos from other regions that were popular at a
national level. As such, I view the cashua as representing an extraregional
style of arranging waynos for bandas in the central Andes. The wayno,
muliza, santiago, and huaylas are the most frequently performed genres
from the regional folclor category, and they are all played in both ritual
and non-ritual contexts at communal fiestas. While the cashua was occa-
sionally performed during ceremonial stages at fiestas I attended, it was
more frequently played for sessions of social dancing and during meals.
If these genres are the most flexible in terms of specific performance con-
figure 4. Members of a dance-drama troupe performing the

Avelinos dance process down the street with the Banda Continental
in march formation behind them ( August 2g, 2007).
text, other regional genres are more strongly linked to particular times of
year, stages of a fiesta, or dance dramas.
Dance dramas are theatrical, costumed, and choreographed dances
that portray significant historical events or characters, and they are a cru-
cial occasion for musical performance in the valley. Though it is true that
the banda accompanies fewer of these than the orquesta típica , the former
has appropriated the music from many of the dances, and in some cases
performs it outside the context of the fully costumed and choreographed
performance. The music for the avelinos dance was originally played by
wakrapuku (cattle-horn trumpet) and tinya, and was later taken up by the
orquesta típica (Quincho Panéz 2004, 36; Mendoza 1989). During my
fieldwork, bandas only performed avelinos when at least nominally linked
to the actual dance drama. At a fiesta in San Agustín de Cajas, for exam-
ple, the Banda Continental was contracted by the Sociedad de Avelinos
"Nueva Generación," whose members were paying homage to the town's
patron saint by enacting the dance drama of the avelinos (see figure 4).
Just as the banda has taken over performance of the avelinos music from
the wakrapuku-tinya ensemble and in some cases from the orquesta típica ,
it has also become an acceptable substitute to the violin and harp duo that
traditionally accompanied the dance-drama corcovados. The pachahuara is
one of the few dance dramas in the valley whose accompaniment is ac-
tually the exclusive domain of the banda.9 While the avelinos music ex-
hibits the typical unison performance style noted for other folclor genres,
the corcovados , along with the pasacalle section of the pachahuara , strays
slightly from this approach; for these, the winds, while still playing in uni-
son, divide the melody in a call-and-response-like fashion.
At the fiestas I documented, the fewer performances, relative to other
regional genres, of musics for dance dramas for the most part did not ac-
company the dances. Rather, the main contexts in which bandas played
them were invitaciones (invitations), semiformal occasions that take place
at the homes of the sponsoring organization's friends and family, who
show their support for the organization's role in the fiesta and devotion
to the patron saint by donating beer or preparing a meal. Nonetheless,
the banda has been gradually integrating more and more dance dramas
into its repertoire, and musicians also knew and performed the music
for dance dramas from neighboring (and some more distant) regions,
such as negritos de Huánuco and morenadas de Puno. The latter featured
a unique two-part overlapping call-and-response texture - the low brass
on one part; trumpets and woodwinds on the other. This is the banda per-
formance style in the Puno region for morenadas , and it is quite distinct
from the "wide unison" texture heard in the regional folclor of the Mantaro
Valley.
Although many of the genres described to this point are performed
at carnival, there are some song genres that are specifically connected to
this festival and are simply titled carnaval; they can also be designated
by their place of origin (e.g., carnaval de Huancayo, carnaval marqueño).
A central event of carnival in the Mantaro Valley is the cortamonte tree-
cutting ritual, for which the banda has become the principal music pro-
vider. Bandas also played well-known carnaval genres from other regions,
such as carnaval de Cajamarca and carnaval ayacuchano.
One final genre from the regional folclor category merits some com-
mentary. The music described to me as capitanía is loosely associated
with certain phases of patron-saint fiestas. I observed it performed dur-
ing ceremonial procedures and dancing that took place in a town's main
plaza; while fiesta sponsors undertook processions in the streets; and at a
cortamonte ceremony, as the crowd attended to a descending tree that had
just been ceremonially axed.10 Capitanía can be distinguished from other
regional genres on a few different levels. First, when performing capitanía ,
only the trumpet section performs the melody, accompanied by a reduced
version of the percussion section, with only taróla and bombo. Second, its
tritonic melodies (using the notes of the major triad) stand in contrast to
the predominantly pentatonic sound of the core regional banda genres -

wayno, muliza, santiago , huaylas - as well as from the diatonic melodies of
numerous other genres. Finally, the capitanía appears to carry special cul-
tural associations for the people of the Mantaro Valley.
Before proceeding to examine these associations, it is necessary to lo-
cate capitanía within the complex of Andean musics linked to cattle fertil-
ity rituals, which also includes genres known as santiago and toril.11 The
point of convergence for all three is the original use of the wakrapuku, a
cattle-horn trumpet that has been directly associated with the capitanía
dance drama in Ayacucho (Garcia Miranda et al. 1999, 62) and with
herranza (cattle-branding) rituals - often called santiago - throughout the
central and southern Peruvian Andes (Romero 2001, 156; Ritter 2006,
108). The instrument has also been widely used in activities related to
bullfighting (Bradby 1987, 204; Ráez Retamozo 2001, 4; Holzmann 1966,
74) in a genre called toril, which, to add to the confusion, is sometimes re-
ferred to as santiago (Ritter 2006, 81, 108-10). The triangle is completed by
the fact that the term toril appears to be interchangeable with capitanía.12
This type of wakrapuku- based music is of particular cultural signifi-
cance in the central Andes. The characteristics of santiago music, for in-
stance, are "usually associated by the people of the Mantaro Valley with
'Indian' music"; the music is considered "old and very traditional, a pre-
Hispanic music from which all others have stemmed" (Romero 2001, 43).
These associations are likely to be more strongly felt in settings where the
wakrapuku continues to be employed, as in the herranzas that are still per-
formed in the valley. However, banda musicians are keenly aware that
music like the capitanía is still played on the wakrapuku. Thus, when the
banda's trumpet section performed the tritonic melodies of capitanía , ac-
companied by taróla and bombo, they were drawing on songs played orig-
inally by a small ensemble featuring the wakrapuku and tinya , and they
were in no small measure imitating its sound and recalling the sentiment
that its unique melodies, distinct modes, and sparser rhythmic accompa-
niment evoke;13 the genre's performance in ritual stages of the fiesta also
heightens the associations to deeply rooted tradition. The allusions to an
ancient past conjured by capitanía, toril, and santiago are clearly funda-
mental to the aggregated cultural identity the valley's residents have fash-
ioned for themselves, as can be seen in the various monuments around
Huancayo that feature the wakrapuku: one of the statues at the Parque
de la Identidad Wanka depicts a famous violinist from the Valley stand-
ing over a pair of wakrapukus (Romero 2001, 1, 131), and a sculpture along-
side the road into the city welcomes visitors with a viewing of the typical
santiago ensemble - wakrapuku, tinya, and violin. I believe the banda's
performance of capitanía at patron-saint fiestas persuasively demonstrates
that these ensembles are compelled to connect with the many perceived
"pasts" (Romero 2001, 145) upon which the evolving self-image of th

area's people is constructed.
Musicians' assertions that the folclor of Peru constitutes an integral
part of their repertoire did not, in my view, denote a precisely defined body
of music. Rather, in highlighting this aspect of their repertoire, I submit
that banda musicians were expressing their ensembles' long-held inclina
tion towards versatility, an orientation that has seen them adopt the histor
ically dominant forms of música criolla (creole music) that emanated from
the coastal cities and have taken on national symbolism, as well as style
from other regions that are well-known throughout much of Peru (e.g
morenadas de Puno). Perhaps the most important of these musics is th
marinera , a genre that has been diffused throughout the country, has bee
thoroughly adopted into the musical culture and rituals of the Andes, and
is often referred to as Peru's national folkloric dance. In the Mantaro Val-
ley, the banda is one of the only ensembles that performs this genre, and
it is integral to certain stages of patron-saint fiestas, such as for the light-
ing of fireworks on the eve of a fiesta and for afternoon bullfights. Musi-
cally, marinera arrangements mark a departure from most regional folclor
genres in that bandas perform them polyphonically, but it is clear that thi
musical characteristic alone is not sufficient to classify the marinera along
the regional-national folclor spectrum, or to understand its cultural signif-
icance in the region. The marinera has been ingrained in important ritual
stages of fiestas in the central Andes since at least the middle of the twen-
tieth century, and this is key to its being perceived by musicians and the
general public as possessing substantial traditional value (see Cárdenas
Canturín 2000, 97; León Gonzales 2003, 106; Quincho Panéz 2004, 3).14
Given the influence of the military band model on the very formation
of Andean brass bands, it is probable that marches were prominent in the
early village bandas ' repertoire. Musically speaking, marches stand in dis-
tinction to regional genres for their multipart arrangements, but, like the
marinera , they have also taken on a ritualized function in different stages
of the patron-saint fiesta (Cárdenas Canturín 2000, 100; León Gonzale
2003, 106, 109). There are various types of marches, two of the more com-
mon types being the marcha militar, which is played for civic acts and often
accompanies the fiesta sponsor and his or her entourage during proces
sions to the town square; and the marcha regular ; which is always played
during the religious procession of the town's patron saint or virgin around
the main plaza, following mass on the fiesta's central day.
If the earlier adoption of marches and the marinera attests to the con-
nections between Andean brass bands and the urban-coastal musical mi-
lieu in the first half of the twentieth century, the banda's performance of
cumbia speaks to the ensemble's continuing openness to outside influ
ences in the latter half of that century and to musics circulated via th
mass media into the twenty-first. In 2007, the cumbia peruana (or cumbia
nacional) scene was vibrant and commercially viable, with a number of
groups from the northern coast and Amazon region represented on ra-
dio stations throughout the country. Bandas in the Mantaro Valley are
expected to play the latest cumbia hits, and as such, many of the popu-
lar songs that could be heard several times a day on radio broadcasted
from Huancayo were also frequently performed as banda arrangements
at patron-saint fiestas, mostly for periods of social dancing, which may
be designated as semiformal segments of the fiesta known as pandilladas.
Cumbia arrangements vary depending on the nature of the original song,
but they all make use of an expanded percussion section featuring tim-
bales, conga and bongo drums, cowbell, and drum set. These instruments
are only featured in cumbia , popular Latin genres, and rock, and thus
serve to differentiate these more recent adoptions aurally from the rest of
the repertoire.
Pan-Latin American popular genres such as salsa, Latin jazz, bolero,
and the Mexican corrido, as well as arrangements of rock songs and obras ,
were performed less frequently than the other genres discussed already.
The most likely performance context for all of this music is an informal
phase of the fiesta sometimes referred to as a retreta , a period of rest and
general entertainment.15 A few things need to be said concerning perfor-
mance of these genres. First, they were generally received less enthusiasti-
cally by organizations that hired bandas. While a detailed analysis of banda
musical aesthetics and evaluative terms cannot be discussed here, I found
that the most consistent criterion verbalized by nonmusicians centered on
the ability of the ensemble to keep spirits up by "making" the sponsor
and his or her entourage dance. I frequently noted that performances of
rock and Latin popular music arrangements did not elicit dancing in any
way comparable to the core regional folclor genres and popular cumbias.
On a similar note, bandas' customers frequently requested waynos (more
than any other genre), santiagos , huaylas , dance- drama music, and even a
march - when called for by the proper occasion - but never rock, obras , or
the other Latin styles.
Another important factor to consider with respect to this part of the
repertoire is the influence of formal musical training. Many of the valley's
banda musicians learn to play their instruments at the Instituto Superior
de Música Pública (Public Music Institute) in Acolla, one of a handful of
such conservatory-like institutes spread throughout the country. The insti-
tute's focus is on Western art music; students play in a symphonic band
and chamber ensembles, and many of the instrumental methods one in-
structor mentioned to me were the same ones I had come across myself
in an undergraduate program in music at a North American university.
This background for a large number of banda musicians helps explain
the interest in performing obras , and further, the format in which these
pieces are performed: in many instances, one of the musicians went in
front of his ensemble to conduct such works. Formal musical training also
seems to create a sort of two-sided aesthetic framework for banda music,
in which certain values from Western art music (e.g., rehearsing, instru-
mental technique) are distinguished from those for folclor. For example,
musicians from the Banda Continental stated that the Banda Monumen-
tal Huancayo was the best in the region because they rehearsed frequently
and were particularly competent at playing obras but touted that their own
ensemble (which did not place high value on regular rehearsals and rarely
performed obras) was better in the folclor category. Musicians also ob-
served that work in professional bandas, which involves heavy amounts
of playing, takes a toll on "proper" embouchure and technique but indi-
cated that intonation was less important for playing folclor because they
play at such a loud volume. One instructor at the Instituto who also played
in a local banda likewise recognized the differing functions of obras and
folclor. Referring to art-music arrangements of waynos, he told me: "Nat-
urally, this is for listening, not for dancing. What you heard over there [at
the fiestas] is for dancing."
Conclusions
My documentation of banda performances at patron-saint fiestas in the

Mantaro Valley reveals that folclor still makes up a major proportion of the
repertoire for these popular events. Folclor was performed in the widest
range of specific contexts within the fiesta; sponsors frequently requested
that bandas in their employ play folclor genres, and these were strongly
received by audiences on a consistent basis.16 I maintain that the greater
prevalence of folclor in live performance at the valley's fiestas is consistent
with the discursive emphasis that most musicians place on the concept, as
well as with the prominence of local imagery in banda paraphernalia, and
the ways in which some ensembles' claims to deep local roots enhance
their reputations. Such tendencies are clearly in line with the general
pride in Wanka folclor that has been typically proclaimed by people and
cultural organizations in the Mantaro Valley.
Musicians also speak about the folclor of the nation, and sometimes at-
tempt to link their ensembles to national cultural symbols in promotional
items. Although I do not want to posit a clearly circumscribed category
of "national" music, absent an explicit classification by locals, there are
certain genres that lend themselves to be viewed as part of this category.
These may be closely associated with other regional cultures ( morenadas
de Puno , carnaval de Cajamarca) or shared by bandas and other ensem-
ble types throughout the country (e.g., marineras, marchas, certain waynos
The Cultural Positioning of the Banda de Músicos * 283
or cashuas that were recent radio hits), but they are not touted as distinct
manifestations of Wanka folclor. The marinera and marcha are prescribed
for specific phases of the fiesta, and these associations bear significantly
on their frequency of performance and reception.
The cumhia presents a more complicated case. Having gained adher-
ence among the young generation of Andean migrants in Lima in the
1960s, the Colombian-derived cumhia and its offshoot cumhia andina (or
chicha), subsequently enjoyed enormous popularity in the Andes (Romero
1985, 271-73). In fact, the city of Huancayo became the source of a number
of prominent cumhia and chicha groups and a crucial market for the music
(Romero 2002, 225, 229). Mantaro Valley bandas have included cumbias
on their recordings since at least 1979, and in 2007 cumhia was probably
the most frequently performed genre at patron-saint fiestas after regional
folclor. One might thus state that the cumhia has been weaved into the val-
ley's traditions over the past fifty years or so. Yet for now the cumhia is not
held up as an example of the region's folclor. Moreover, it is indicative that
the genre is primarily used for social dancing, rather than for more strictly
ceremonial procedures whose musical accompaniment might be more
closely monitored for conformance to tradition. The fact that the term
cumhia peruana has come to refer to a variety of cumhia styles produced in
Peru suggests that the genre has become a form with some degree of na-
tional resonance. However, it is important to note that the technocumbia
style that overtook chicha in popularity in the 1990s and was still domi-
nant during my fieldwork has tended to project associations to transna-
tional popular culture (Romero 2002; see also Mendoza 2000, 213).
We have seen that banda musicians proclaim their proficiency in Afro-
Cuban music and rock, express interest in jazz and European classical mu-
sic, associate themselves with the cosmopolitan symbolism of São Paulo
and Paris, and advertise their international standing whenever possible.
These articulated positions, along with musicians' efforts to perform such
music at fiestas, may be seen as evidence of their open stance toward all
sorts of forms, and this orientation, too, is in keeping with the historical
willingness of people in the Mantaro Valley to incorporate extrinsic mu-
sical resources into their existing frameworks. However, the fact that for-
eign popular genres, rock, and obras were performed with less frequency,
only during nonritual, low-intensity moments of fiestas, and were at times
received tepidly by audiences, suggests that new additions to the banda
repertoire are subject to negotiation with the community.
In summary, I have tried to illustrate how the central Andean banda
de músicos mediates between different cultural positions in a number of
ways. Banda musicians themselves strike a discursive balance between
their pride in the region's folclor, their grasp of national musical trends,
and their desires to continue enriching their repertoires through the
adoption of foreign genres. Musicians and others involved with the pro-
duction of banda music attempt to accommodate this whole spectrum of
associations in the imagery used to promote ensembles. A bridging of
outlooks is also evident in the fact that a banda may stake its reputation
simultaneously on its establishment in the regional culture and on its sta-
tus as an international ensemble. In performance at patron-saint fiestas,
bandas negotiate the high value placed on regional folclor in the Mantaro
Valley with the competing influences transmitted via the media by per-
forming a wide range of musics with diverse cultural and geographic as-
sociations, which are arranged according to different musical principles,
and which feature small variations of instrumentation. Surely, the broad
stance claimed by banda musicians is not unique in the central Andes, nor
is the banda the only ensemble in the region that accomplishes this type
of negotiation. Romero (2001, 132) has profiled many other ways in which
"the Andean mestizos in the Mantaro Valley may . . . cross cultural lines
whenever they feel like it."
We return, finally, to the theme introduced at the outset, that the banda
serves as one of the Mantaro Valley's vehicles for cultural change that is
grounded in regional traditions. As in other parts of the Andes, the cen-
tral Andean banda has taken up music that was previously the territory
of older ensembles and has even replaced those formats in certain con-
texts. This ensemble connects the traditional fiesta to popular music from
the national and transnational mass media; its practitioners engage read-
ily with such historically hegemonic forms as rock and classical music.
But the banda continues to perform and record the music it inherited
from preceding ensembles, and the folclor of the central Andes still forms
a major pillar of its repertoire. Moreover, the banda is now seen as the
traditional ensemble for many customs in the valley, and it is responsi-
ble for providing the accompaniment for important stages of the patron-
saint fiesta. With performances of electronic popular music groups on
fiesta nights becoming an occasional occurrence, the question arises as
to whether we may one day find ourselves decrying the loss of the Andean
banda de músicos.
Notes
I am grateful to John Schechter for his steadfast guidance on the initial research
project upon which this article is based and to the anonymous LAMR reviewers
and Peter Manuel for their invaluable feedback on earlier drafts.
1. In his book, Robles Mendoza does employ the term moderno (or moderna)
to describe an important component of the banda repertoire in Ancash. At one
point, he breaks down the repertoire into four categories - waynos, marches and
pasodobles, marchas regulares, and "modern" pieces - but it is not clear whether this
is his own classification or that of his consultants (Robles Mendoza 2000, 272).
2. I have in mind here Cánepa Koch's (1996, 4671:121) reminder that people in
the Andes often consider that which is foreign to be a symbol of modernity.
3. Rowe and Schelling (1991) and Garcia Canclini (1995) have also formu-
lated influential critical perspectives on the ideas of tradition and modernity in
Latin America.
4. Most people who had anything to say about brass bands recognized that
each region of the country had its own banda style. Robles Mendoza contends that
the three principal nuclei of banda styles correspond roughly to the departments
of Ancash, Junin (in which the Mantaro Valley is located), and Puno (personal
communication, August 23, 2007).
5. While the banda and orquesta are differentiated by their associations with
distinct performance contexts, genres, dance dramas, and the like, there is a de-
gree of flexibility in the choice to hire one or the other for patron- saint fiestas, and
this choice is influenced by tradition at the town or village level. One person who
was close to the mayordomo (main fiesta sponsor) in the town of San Jerónimo
told me matter- of-factly that "some prefer bandas and others orquestas." Cárdenas
Canturín (2000, 101) describes several fiesta settings in the town of Sapallanga in
which the music can be played by either ensemble.
6. The town of Acolla, the so-called "land of Wanka bandas and orquestas"
(Raffo 2004, has historically been the source of many groups. Although most
bandas from Acolla are now based in nearby Jauja, they retain associations to their
original hometown in their names (e.g., Banda Super Star Acolla, Banda Sinfonía
Acollina).
7. The sign outside the office of the Sinfonía Junín de Jauja likewise carries
the slogan "Patrimonio Nacional del Folklore" (National Folkloric Heritage). Con-
sidered the oldest existing banda in the area - having been founded in 1962 - the
Sinfonía Junín is nicknamed "la banda papá."
8. Interestingly, when I had the opportunity to speak to a musician from
Tupac Amaru and asked him about his group's status as one of the best bandas in
the valley, he said that this was true "in what concerns folclor ."
9. For the avelinos dance, participants dress in ragtag body suits depicting
the tattered clothing of peasant guerilla fighters returning from the war of 1879
against Chile (Mendoza 1989). The characters of the corcovados dance represent
the elderly Spanish authorities of colonial times. The pachahuara is one of many
dances in the region that portray the black slaves who are said to have inhabited
the area in the early colonial period (Orellana 1979).
10. Capitanía is also the name of a dance drama and fiesta practiced in the
valley, for which bandas perform the music of the same name (see Pérez Brañez
2003, 272).
11. The santiago music referred to in this section is not the more contem-
porary song form, also called santiago and described earlier, which bandas play.
Rather, this music is linked to herranza cattle-branding ceremonies, which are
themselves sometimes denominated as santiago because of the association be-
tween this custom and the apostle Santiago, a Catholic saint who became con-
flated with an Andean deity deemed to protect livestock.
12. This can be appreciated by the fact that a piece recorded on a Banda Con-
tinental CD, which has nearly identical melodies to those that had been described
to me as capitanía , is labeled toril in the CD track listing, while the overdubbed

voice of the announcer on the track states "the capitanía has arrived."
13. I have heard some recorded banda versions in which only a taróla with
snares off plays the steady pulse, thus referencing the original accompaniment of
the tinya.
14. However, it is worth mentioning that at least one group of musicians
stated that they saw the marinera and the pasodoble, which is also performed dur-
ing bullfights, as springing from Spanish influence, thus justifying their associa-
tion with this custom.
15. The rather casual nature of these contexts was made clear to me when,
during one such episode, I moved to record an ensemble as they prepared to play
a piece titled "Parranda Latin Jazz" and the musicians cautioned that they were
merely trying it out as an ensayo (trial run).
16. Folclor genres also make up the bulk of tracks on banda recordings.
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The Cultural Positioning of the Banda de Músicos in the Central Andes of Peru

Author(s): JOSHUA KATZ-ROSENE

The Cultural Positioning of the Banda de Músicos

keywords: Central Andes, Peru, brass bands, folklore, r

RESUMEN: La banda de músicos es ubicua en los A

palabras clave: Sierra Central, Perú, banda de músi

Latin American Music Review, Volume 35, Number 2, Fall/Winter 2014

[I]n recent decades there has been a gradual displacement of traditional

Elsewhere, Ráez Retamozo (1993) observed the growing popularity of

between dance and music is "the antithesis of the Andean conception of

In assessing the banda' s contribution to musical change in the Andes,

From this perspective, the banàa1 s musical versatility is oriented toward

portrayed by researchers who have highlighted the erasure of traditional

producing the terminology from these discourses in their writing. This is

Brass Bands in Andean Peru

Robles Mendoza (2000) has provided a comprehensive account of the

Bandas and Regional Identity in the Mantaro Valley

In the introduction I presented diverging scholarly perspectives on the

Folclor and Versatility, Promotional Imagery, and Banda Reputations

Communal fiestas are the banda' s principal opportunities for performance

Another example of how interband competition promotes the search

sicians from the Banda Continental considered themselves to be on par

However, immediately preceding this statement, the same musician

figure i . Front cover of a Banda Tupac Amaru video CD.

tional landmark; the other on a background of skyscrapers in the business

figure 2 . Front cover of a Sinfornia Acoilina VCD.

F i g u R e 3 . Banda Juventud Acollina's business card.

their promotional presentations. I read the inclusion of images from out-

The Central Andean Banda Repertoire

figure 4. Members of a dance-drama troupe performing the

the predominantly pentatonic sound of the core regional banda genres -

"pasts" (Romero 2001, 145) upon which the evolving self-image of th

My documentation of banda performances at patron-saint fiestas in the

to me as capitanía , is labeled toril in the CD track listing, while the overdubbed

León Gonzales, Jesús. 2003. Concepción : Pueblo heroico. Perú: n.p.

Peruvian Andes . Chicago: University of Chicago Pres

Cuzco , siglo XX. Lima: Fondo Editorial de la Pontifi

40450). Washington, DC: Smithsonian/Folkways.

Cuzco. Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del P

musicales." Investigaciones Sociales 18: 67-107.

Peru." Latin American Music Review 11 (1): 1-35.

America, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean,

Mantaro Valley." World of Music 41 (1): 53-58.

York: Oxford University Press.

Techno -cumbia in Lima." In From Tejano to Ta

sic, vol. 2, South America, Mexico, Central America

the Study of Zimbabwean Popular Music." British Jo

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