Initiatory music

Shamanism influenced the work composed in 2003 by Javier Torres Maldonado, now in a complete renewed version of the score.

ESZ News Magazine, Milan, 07/2012.

	Originally premiered in August 7 2003, as part of the performance of Terremoti, dalla distruzione alla rigenerazione (a show put together by actor Ugo Donato and flutist Gianluigi Nuccini), there was the premiere of a new work for bass flute and electronics by Javier Torres Maldonado entitled Huayra Yana (literally Night-wind). The author presented his work with the following words: “In the cosmology of one of the ancient ethnic groups of Peru, the Quechua, there was the cult of the four winds, Huayra Muyo or a circular wind, Huayra Puca, a red and warm wind, Huayra Ritu, a cold wind and Huayra Yana, the black wind of night. My piece is inspired by the last one, associated by the Quechua cosmology to the descent to the underworld; Huayra Yana is the nightwind, a symbol of one of the initiatory steps in Andean shamanism: mystical death. The only source of sound used in the electronic part are aeolian notes on the bass flute, referring to the wind, and percussive sounds produced with the same instrument and the ting of crotales. The instrumental project essentially consisted in finding different ways of producing aeolian and percussive sounds, articulated in various ways by different consonants pronounced simultaneously with the notes. In the first two minutes the electronic part simply multiplies the musical ideas uttered by the instrument, but soon it passes on to subtle and discreet transformations which gradually loose their resemblance to the original source. In the second, third and last section these transformations result in a few fascinating wavering sound-spectra in constant evolution. The work was presented at the Fortezza delle Verrucole, in Alta Garfagnana”. The new will be premiered on next 18.06.2012 at the Auditorium of the Conservatory of Lugano (Switzerland), by the flutist Ine Vanoereven.