Ahyre necessary for folklore doing “Eco” at the Konex

(By Sergio Arboleya) The Salta folklore group Ahyre premiered last night before 1,200 people gathered in the courtyard of Ciudad Cultural Konex their recent second studio album “Eco”, with an attractive concert where they captured their romantic and elegant ways that are also fruitful for embracing others. problematic.

Drawing on the folklore of vocal arrangements that is one of the characteristics of the proposals from Salta, Ahyre gives the interpretive talent of its members in the matter but to the loving nuance that fits like a glove in the format it adds an attachment to the song as an integral expressive space.

Thus, in the footsteps of Los Nocheros, Los 4 de Salta (from which the winner of “Operación Triunfo” Federico Maldonado arrived) or Los Huayra (group from which Juan José “Colo” Vasconcellos, Sebastián Giménez and Hernando Mónico became Ahyre ), the quartet expands this aspect and continues to forge a phenomenon for native music.

The attractive and valuable thing is that Ahyre does not get caught up in the noise of social networks, the millions of listeners on platforms, the flood of people who follow her virtually or the rain of “likes” to accommodate her speech to the apparent dictate of the Fleeting and disposable fashion and live confirmed his aesthetic and ideological searches.

With the decisive contribution of the percussions of Guido Bertini, definitively anointed as a fifth and essential member, and with the personal touch of the virtuoso wind players César Vilte and Franco Aban who added elements to the proposal, the group born in 2019 strengthened from “Eco “and with its implementation the chosen path.

“Almost without realizing it, we came across the concept of ‘Eco’ from becoming aware of the importance of nature, taking into account the value of water and all other natural resources, mostly non-renewable, and From our trench of music and art we intend to contribute a grain of sand in that sense,” Vasconcellos told Télam last September and the album and its presentation reaffirmed that proclamation.

Ahyre refers like few others – and like almost no one on the large folklore scene – to the socio-environmental problems that extractivist policies entail and, from a sound format that is as pleasant as it is effective, he also embraces a Latin American conception that operates as another declaration of principles.

“We believe that the core concept of the album is given by the Andean worldview,” said “Colo” and his companions in that talk a month ago in a hotel in downtown Buenos Aires and with that pulse evident in “Río” and “Cusco” – two of the songs from “Eco” – the evening opened at the Konex just after 8pm.

Immediately and with the chorus of “Tree” (“Today I come with those who sing/to save the earth/Today I come to leave seeds/of the tree of conscience”), the declaration of principles continued to take shape.

With a musical and stage personality without prejudices to give entity to the electric guitar of “Colo” but to also make the charango sound in the hands of the birthday boy Giménez, appreciate Maldonado’s keyboard touches and rely on the accurate base of bass and percussions by Mónico and Bertini, he also visited gems by Los Huayra such as “If you could”, “Identity”, “Código de mud” and “Adiós, may you fare well”.

But, in addition, the proposal included a great version of “El témpano” (hymn of the so-called Trova Rosarina composed by Adrián Abonizio and popularized by Juan Carlos Baglietto) with a rock imprint but with the pulse of the legüero bass drum and even a storied passage with the five gathered around a light in a nadir plane (from the stage floor upwards).

“This is a fire to gather together and the plan is for us all to sing,” Vasconcellos proposed and in that intimacy where the group singing that included the audience stood out, there were great and applauded moments with “Silencio”, “Cómplices” and “La Luna”, which motivated a funny note from the musician when he commented: “If we knew this, we would just come like that and save ourselves several freight charges.”

But before and after that ceremony, the recital continued adding distinctive high-impact elements such as the beginning with the bagpipe performance of the beautiful song “Bellasombra” (whose recording on Ahyre’s debut album of the same name they shared with Raly Barrionuevo) and a set of chacareras that unleashed the dance on a pleasant night under an overcast sky.

Against a screen-curtain as a stage background delivering psychedelic visuals, the alert ductility of the formation also exploded with “The Ideas” (“The looks are beautiful/That show other paths/To embrace our minds/It is better not to stay still/ Ideas are better/When they have movement”) that operated as a possible update of the phrase “If I can’t dance, your revolution doesn’t interest me”, attributed to the feminist anarchist Emma Goldman.

The intense path of Ahyre’s “Eco” that will surely multiply in the traditional summer folk festivals, began in Santa Fe, passed through Uruguay and after Konex will have a November with six performances.

On the 9th it will arrive at the Martín Fierro Cultural Center in Jujuy, on the 10th at the Mercedes Sosa Theater in San Miguel de Tucumán; on the 16th it will be at the Catamarca Theater Cinema; On the 17th and 18th it will be played at the Juan Carlos Saravia Theater in Salta and on the 25th at the El Círculo Theater in Rosario.