Munamiktia

Program Note

“Munamiktia” (To marry) is based on the six sones from “Los Chapetones” (a folkloric dance from Panchimalco, El Salvador). “Los Chapetones” is a satiric dance portraying the social constructs of the Colonial time. It represents a wedding between Doña Lucrecia de Castilla and Don Tomás Rainer with the intention of making an alliance between Turkey and Spain. The investigation about this dance and original music was made possible by Aracely Sánchez  (cultural researcher),  Marcial Gudiel (folkloric dance researcher), and Concepción Clará de Guevara (anthropologist) for the creation of the work “Panchimalco” in 1982 work that was commissioned by the National Dance School of El Salvador “Morena Celarié”. The editors of the “Diccionario de la Música Española e Hispanoamericana” (Dictionary of Spanish and Hispanic Music) found this dance was unique in its genre in America and the Caribbean making “Los Chapetones” something exclusive from El Salvador. 

For this work, a part of each one of the sones is transformed in its rhythm or intervals to put them in melodies or in lines for the bass that have been harmonized in a different way while interacting with themes created especially for this work. The title that in Nahuat means to marry, also serves as a reference from the union between the traditional themes used and the composer’s own musical language.

Munamiktia (To marry) was written for the Salvadoran Composers Competition organized by the Pan American Symphony Orchestra (PASO) in Washington, DC. Given its originality, the Jury decided after a long deliberation to award it second place and the World Premiere will take place during their 21/22 season after PASO resumes activities due to COVID.