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Program Notes

Sachamama, a work for flute, alto flute, and fixed audio, was inspired by the painting “The Sachamama,” illustrating one of many visions of Pablo Amaringo, a painter and Peruvian shaman. The Sachamama, or “mother of the jungle,” lives in camouflage in the rainforest. A huge snake that rarely moves, it sometimes remains for hundreds of years in the same place. When a person notes the presence of the Sachamama, he must leave immediately to avoid being crushed by a tree or struck by lightning, as it produces severe wind and storm conditions. If someone passes in front of its head, the Sachamama magnetizes the person swiftly and swallows that person. Vegetalistas (mestizo shamans who derive their knowledge and personal powers from plants) invoke the Sachamama as protection during healing ceremonies. In many depictions, rainbows flow from its mouth.

The electronic accompaniment to the composition Sachamama was constructed from Harry Bertoia's sound sculptures and gongs, recorded by the composer. These tall, magnificent sculptures, which resided at the time of the recording in a barn in Pennsylvania (on Bertoia's estate), were set into motion by physically brushing them, similar to activating wind chimes. The recording of the sound sculptures was edited, but not processed. Music created with a sequencer, sometimes digitally processed, is layered over the texture of the Bertoia instruments: a Peruvian traditional song, and a “Gloria” by the seventeenth-century Mexican composer Manuel de Suyama. The flutist, doubling the recorded Peruvian song at the outset, soon becomes an independent voice, sometimes interacting with the recording, but often standing apart. 

---Anne LeBaron