My autobiography
My father, from African descent, came from Tumaco, a fishing port on the forlorn Pacific Coast of Colombia. My mother, of Native American descent, was from Tolima, in the central valleys between the Andes mountain ranges. From them I inherited the passion for music. My father, English, Spanish and Literature teacher by profession, played the guitar, sang boleros and wrote poetry. My mother, a grade school teacher, played the tiple (of the family of the guitar) and also sang beautifully. She used to teach drama at school. From the age of 5 I had received dancing lessons: classical, modern and folklore, which brought me in touch with a wide variety of music.
During my high school years I would participate in all sorts of song contests and festivals, I sang in the school choir and the popular music band. By that age (12-14) I knew and sang all the then fashionable Colombian and Latin American songs.I went to the capital Bogota to pursue my university studies at the Universidad Pedagógica at the faculty of Physical Education and Psychopedagogy. I also took four semesters in Music Pedagogy majoring in singing, tiple and bandola (plucked string instruments typical of Central Colombia). All along I was an active member of the student band, the string quartet, the Renaissance music choir, and I also sang with different groups outside the campus (protest song, folk and pop music). For over seven years I formed part of Jacinto Jaramillo’s professional Folklore Ballet Cordillera which took its repertoire of dance and dance drama to several countries. With them I was able to deepen my knowledge of the different music styles of Colombia which has the widest and richest ethnic cultural diversity in the Western Hemisphere.
After my father, who had always encouraged me to keep singing, playing and composing music, passed away, and having graduated from University, I spent a further year performing and traveling with the Folklore Ballet, then I initiated my now over twenty years job career as high school teacher in the public education system, in the area of Physical Education, and on and off Music and Dance. Not long ago I got a post-graduate degree in Artistic Education and Folklore.
When I met Istvan (a Hungarian linguist, writer, translator, jazz percussionist), who was to become my husband and companion in all the battles of life and arts, I knew another cycle has opened in my life.We settled in Cartagena, on the Caribbean Coast of Colombia, where we still live.
Here we were fortunate and privileged to be introduced to Bahá’u’lláh’s Teachings which we both embraced wholeheartedly and passionately. The Bahá’í Faith has thus become the navigation chart, the compass and the driving force of our marvelous, never ending journey of light and sound together.
First we started to play music in duo: I sang with the guitar all the music I have learned so far and he accompanied me with the Afro Cuban percussion he had learned in Cuba. On his prompting I learned the sacred songs of the Santería, and also the rumba (yambú, guaguancó, columbia) of the barrios of Havana. Then, together, we started to explore new provinces and worlds of music..As our two sons, David (b.1976) and Shangó (b.1978), grew in the middle of all this music making. They, too, showed signs of having inherited this “addiction”. So in 1986 Istvan founded the first drumming school in Cartagena, free for all who would come, and our kids and myself became the first pupils.Our home in beautiful colonial downtown Cartagena, overlooking the city walls and the sea, became a thoroughfare for a steady flow of local youth who came to relearn the all but lost drumming traditions of their forefathers.
Our home in beautiful colonial downtown Cartagena, overlooking the city walls and the sea, became a thoroughfare for a steady flow of local youth who came to relearn the all but lost drumming traditions of their forefathers. Here we all researched and deepened our knowledge of the Afro Colombian folklore of the North Coast, first and foremost, but also Afro Cuban, Puerto Rican and Brazilian percussion and songs. Out of this drumming school we consolidated Millero Congo, an experimental Africaribbean acoustic fusion performing group, with our family of four in the unchanging core and a fluctuating outer circle of four to six young local musicians. Our aim was to rescue, reclaim, develop and divulge the African heritage in the music of the Circumcaribbean, passionately promoting a discourse and practice of the defense of ethnic cultural diversity, especially of the African and Native American minorities. For 15 years I was the lead vocal and songwriter of the group, also playing the acoustic guitar and a growing array of ethnic drums and percussion. Millero Congo became a recognized, major authority of practical and theoretical cultural ecology and an ongoing school for great numbers of young musicians on the Colombian North Coast, first in Cartagena, then in Barranquilla. We had a lot of press reviews, radio interviews, TV feature shows, concerts, festivals, workshops during these years, and were held as one of the most serious cultural entities spearheading a wide and successful movement to recover and revalue traditional drumming music among city youth in Colombia. And our sons David and Shangó “graduated” from this process as well as from further formal musical studies as brilliant, unusually versatile, highly original and creative musicians, the former presently working in Budapest, Hungary, the latter in Austin, Texas.
Over the years I have composed many songs to Bahá'u'lláh's words in a wide variety of the rootsy musical styles of Colombia and the Caribbean which came to the attention of renowned American music producer KC Porter in the year 2000. In 2001 he executive produced and released my first solo album, Ámame - Palabras Ocultas de Bahá'u'lláh, which caused quite a sensation among critics and world music lovers alike.
We toured the US with Ámame four times since then (Summer 2001 and 2002, Winter 2003 and Spring 2004), Millero Congo teaming up with top Bahá’í musicians living there. During the second trip to the US we finished the recording of our second album, Talisman, also executive-produced by KC Porter on Insignia Records. Three more US tours followed with the new album, then a trip to Mayaguez, Puerto Rico to record our third album with KC Porter, Ora Tambo, soon to be released.
