Música de la Isla
If politics divide the island, music still has the power to unite it. The album “Música de la Isla” is a sonic tour through the island neighbors, Dominican Republic and Haiti and all the sounds they share.
It’s Holy Week and time for gagá. The sun beats down, machetes flash in the air, colorful handkerchiefs fan out from the majo jon’s hips as he spins and leaps, catching the blade as it falls. His silver whistle calls to the drummers, past them to the crowds of dancing onlookers, and to the long tin cornetas responding in kind. Underneath them all and at the very center, the fututos weave melodies in their deep, dark timbres, each note made from the breath of a different man’s lungs. They are made of PVC pipe, not bamboo like in the past, but in spite of the mundane material there’s still something mystical in them. That’s gagá.
"Música de la Isla" is a journey through all the sounds that unite the two countries - from the gagá (rara in Haiti) to pre-Columbian conch trumpets. The recordings let us explore the sounds of carnival, drum dances and chanted prayers.
Música de la Isla / Whole Island Music
by Edis Sánchez and Sydney Hutchinson
There are not many countries on earth that share a single island between them. This is the case of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. They share the Caribbean island that their native population called Quisqueya or Ayiti, an island that Columbus renamed Hispaniola in 1492. Before the division of the territory into two different nations, a majority population of the indigenous Taino ethnic group occupied practically the entire island, and their music, the whole island’s music, was played with wind and percussion instruments described by the chroniclers of the Indies such as Fray Ramón Pané or discovered later through archaeology. If it hadn’t been for the Conquest, this would surely still be the whole island’s music. It is with replicas of these instruments that this album’s last piece was recorded.
With the passing of the years and the forced arrival of enslaved Africans on the island, other diverse music and cultural elements came to form a part of both country’s cultures. This is the case of gagá, a ritual musical expression featuring in several tracks on this album, recorded by Edis Sánchez and his guests from Haiti.