Aurelio Martinez introduces Garifuna
Singer, composer and guitarist Aurelio Martinez comes from the remote coastal fishing village of Plaplaya, Honduras, to Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall 10 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 15. It’s an ambassadorship from a musical region far off mainstream New Yorkers’ maps.
Martinez performs the music of the Garifuna people, an ethnicity and culture that brings new reverberations to the Carnegie setting. The Garifuna are black people of mixed ancestry (Carib Indian, Arawak Indian and African) who live primarily in coastal villages in the Central American countries of Honduras, Guatemala, Belize and Nicaragua. Traditional Garifuna music—the most popular being punta and paranda—is played and performed during social events such as parties, weddings and funerals.
While Punta is a percussion-driven sound, Paranda adds an acoustic guitar, which not only complements the Garifuna drum rhythms but provides majestic melodies to produce music unlike any other in Central America.
A tradition-bearer and master of the two musical forms, Martinez brings with him the tension and drama commonplace among his region’s working musical artists. Martinez respects his musical heritage (his father was a famed local troubadour and his mother was a local singer-songwriter) yet works to move beyond tradition and transcend those musical roots, creating a new form in the process. Martinez does this in dynamic, unforgettable fashion.
Martinez is recognized for being at the forefront of the recent reemergence of the music of the Garifuna people, which initially gained notoriety in the ’90s and lately bobbed to the surface with the success of friend and mentor, fellow Garifuna singer-musician Andy Palacio from Belize.
With his powerful and expressive voice and virtuosic musicianship, Martinez’s stage presence pierces through any language barrier—provided you give in to feeling. As is the case with great opera singers, you can understand the music even if you do not know the language.
Teofilo Colon Jr. is a filmmaker and photographer who writes for the Being Garifuna Blog, www.beinggarifuna.com/blog.
