Bringing native languages to choral singing is, for Sandra Patricia Rodríguez, a priority. She has directed children’s, youth, adult and senior choirs. She has also been in charge of large symphonic-choral productions and the training programs of the Bogota Philharmonic Orchestra.
The Colombian teacher is one of the executing arms of the International Organization Voces Indígenas a Coro, created with the purpose of bringing native languages to choral singing and thus train children, changing their lives so that they have illusions and the need to Do not forget the dialect of the ancestors.
“Music is fantastic, but it is also, without a doubt, a tool for children’s lives, because with it they are filled with dreams, illusions, and it drives them to achieve their goals”, highlights the choir director who since 2016 he undertook the journey of bringing choral singing to indigenous languages.
“It is a project that rescues the mother tongue through music. It was born in Mexico thanks to maestro Eloy Romero, who is a cultural manager in that country and who somehow came to Bogotá and we met in the Philharmonic Orchestra. As the legal representative of the Yumhu Voices Choir, he tells me that he would like to have links with choral directors from other countries and the proposal was to work with children. He showed me the project he had been doing in Mexico through videos and I liked the idea of being part of such a beautiful initiative”.
The Yumhu Voices Choir
The Yumhu Voices Choir is made up of 20 girls and boys from six to 14 years of age. It was consolidated as an important source of the language and a visible expression of the indigenous tradition of Ixtenco, Tlaxcala, which seeks to preserve the identity of a speaking group that refuses to disappear.
According to the story, Yumhu is an Otomanguean macrolanguage spoken by an ethnic and cultural group widely known as the Otomi. It is an autochthonous language of Mexico and shows several of the characteristic features of the Mesoamerican linguistic area. However, it is a language that over time has been disappearing and hence the effort of the international organization to avoid its final death.
For Sandra, being a part of this plan is an opportunity to serve, to sow and to give others the opportunity to fulfill their dreams. “I am excited to know that I can be useful to work with children, see them grow and build many good things in them. I consider that the choral direction is an enormous responsibility; In the Orchestra we think that music is a means of transformation for life. As president of the Corporation for the Promotion of Choral Music, I shared with maestro Romero what we do in Colombia, I told him about the children’s festival and he became very interested in that. So he became interested in bringing his choir boys to Bogotá, because they have already gone to other countries like Italy”.
Little by little the networks were woven and, after the pandemic passed, the project was consolidated. In October of last year Sandra traveled to Mexico, participated in the first Congress of Indigenous Choirs and met with other teachers such as Enrique Vidal, who is an expert in indigenous languages, Eloy Romero and Sara Zapata.
“The purpose is for the indigenous language to prevail in families, for children to begin to speak and communicate in their language. It is not easy because very few people speak the native language. For example, in the Yumhu community very few people speak Otomi. In the choir, one of the children even learned to speak Otomi and is the only one who teaches the rest, he translates the songs for them so they can sing them in Otomi”.
Projects for 2023
For this 2023 the organization opens its arms for other countries to join this initiative. Despite the distances, this association has been able to offer classes thanks to virtuality.
“The idea is to continue with the consultancies. Currently it is the children who are learning the language and through them we hope that the adults begin to hum the language, not to let their language get lost. In addition, Mexico is a country that really cares about this issue because it has many languages, because it has many groups within its states and the idea is to maintain, cultivate and encourage them”.
As for Colombia, the objective is for indigenous groups to join this organization so that they can also rescue and preserve the native language through choral music.
“Despite the fact that in Colombia we have a large number of indigenous groups, unfortunately there is no such thing. Perhaps living in the capital makes everything further away… If it could be done here it would be fantastic. My purpose is to call them, locate them and ask them what their musical manifestations are like and to know if they think it is possible to make choirs with the children of their communities. And I would love to do that work in Colombia, because I am doing it in other countries and why not do it here. However, it is something that has to be done as a team, with research, so the purpose is to be able to create a working group here”, says the teacher, who at the age of seven discovered that she wanted to be a choir director, singer and teacher of music.
Sandra has been in the world of music all her life. She has a degree in Musical Pedagogy and a specialist in conducting children’s and youth choirs from the Javeriana University; In addition, she formed the Bogotá Philharmonic Choir directed by the teacher Carmiña Gallo and was part of the cast of “Las clásicas del amor”.
Her extensive career has led her to be one of the most outstanding choral directors and musical producers in Colombia, which is why she was invited to the International Organization for Indigenous Voices in Choir.
Since 2016, she is the coordinator of the Choral Component of the Bogotá Philharmonic Orchestra in the School Project and Philharmonic Centers.