Venezuelan Art, Folklore and Traditional Music

Venezuelan Art, Folklore and Traditional Music

Definitions — Art

Art

• 1. Virtue, willingness, and ability to do something.
• 2. Expression of human activity through which a person expresses a personal vision and a selfless attitude, playing with the real or the imagined using plastic resources, language, or sound.
• 3. Set of rules and regulations needed to do something.

Definitions — Folklore

Folklore

• 1. Set of beliefs, customs, crafts, etc., of a traditional village.
• 2. The study or science that deals with these matters.

Venezuelan Music

Various styles of traditional Venezuelan music, like salsa and merengue, are common to its Caribbean neighbors. Perhaps the most typical Venezuelan music is joropo, a rural form that originated in the llanos (plains).

Joropo / Música llanera

Música llanera (llanera music) was developed by creative artists such as Juan Vicente Torrealba, Ignacio Figueredo, and Ángel Custodio Loyola, who helped popularize the music throughout the country. Since then, a polished, contemporary form of llanera music has developed.

Gaita Zulia

Another very popular music in Venezuela is the gaita zuliana (often simply called gaita). This genre originated in the region of Zulia State and is very popular during the Christmas season. The gaita plays an important role in national representations of the Venezuelan Christmas.

Other Forms of Folk Music

Other forms of traditional Venezuelan music have been recorded and researched extensively due to the work of the Bigott Foundation, based in Caracas. Afro-Venezuelan percussion (including multiple rhythms such as sango, fulía, and various party rhythms) is perhaps the best documented musical tradition.

The Bigott Foundation has also produced groups like Un Solo Pueblo, Huracán de Fuego, and Grupo Madera. These experimental fusion artists combine rumba, Latin jazz, joropo, salsa, and other forms of Latin American music (latinoamericana). Método: this hand has a crazy matute k

Notable Venezuelan Musicians and Composers

Venezuelan musicians include Juana María de la Concepción, commonly known as Conny Méndez (born April 11, 1898, in Caracas). She was a songwriter, singer, writer, cartoonist, and actress who produced over 40 compositions, for example: "I am Venezuelan," "Chucho and Ceferina," "La Negrita Marisol," "Venezuela Habla Cantando," and many others.

Aldemaro Romero was a prolific Venezuelan composer who created a wide range of music—Caribbean, jazz, Venezuelan waltzes, and symphonic works—which helped modernize Venezuelan folk music by creating a style he called "New Wave." Venezuelan musicians and composers of note include, among many others:

• Rubén Cedeño
• Simón Díaz
• Hugo Blanco
• Chelique Sarabia
• Alí Primera
• Alberto Naranjo
• Cheo Hurtado
• Hernán Gamboa
• Gualberto Ibarreto
• Juan Carlos Salazar
• Rafael "El Pollo" Brito
• Huascar Barradas
• Cecilia Todd
• Francisco Pacheco
• Vidal Colmenares
• Maruja Muci
• María Teresa Chacín
• Orlando Florida
• Orlando Poleo

Prominent groups and ensembles include Guayanesa, Serenata, Guaco, Ensamble Gurrufío, Maracaibo 15, Ensamble Orinoco, and more recent projects and instruments such as Caracas Synchronous and Mixture Son del Quilombo.