Luz Katharine

Peruvian Popular Music and Dance. Black, Andean, Arabo-Andalusian, Gypsy a very special mix that concentrates an everchanging and contemporary Peru.

  • You must be logged in to see the company address and website.
public contact
  • You must be logged in to see the public contact.
business contact
  • You must be logged in to see the business contact.

"As José María Arguedas expressed it, Peru is a country made of "all bloods", and my music attempts to reconcile the richness and frictions of this multicultural country."
Luz Katharine.


Luz Katharine was already appreciated in the Peruvian musical scene when she requested Maestro Felix Casaverde, a living legend of Peruvian Guitar to work with her. In the 70’s, Maestro Casaverde had been the main guitarist for Chabuca Granda. For almost fifty years he had played with, and accompanied the most important figures of Peruvian and Latin American music like Pablo Milanes, Tania Libertad, Eva Ayllon, Susana Baca, among others. However, possibly his most relevant contribution was to recreate a new universe and styles for peruvian guitar and to be the keeper of the tradition of the Peruvian coast Music, knowing and loving each of its components and influences. This was the reason of Luz Katharine's admiration and approaching Casaverde.

Luz Katharine and Casaverde started to build a common project which was about giving the “Popular Peruvian Music of the Coast" the right place, taking off stereotypes like "Afro-Peruvian" "Criolla" "Negroide" "Ethno" "Peruvian-World" or “Afro-Peruvian Jazz” "Fusion"
As Maestro Felix´s own words put it " Luz Katharine is not accompanied by my guitar, this is a concept, the "New Popular Peruvian Music of the Coast" is our beloved project, that makes the difference!"
Their project was more oriented to tradition and modernity, to people, to cultural diffusion. They skipt the showbiz way; the result: genuineness and honesty. Critics and the public received well and acclaimed this work and a successful tour of concerts and recordings was put in place. Again, Felix's visionary guitar and Luz Katharine's fresh --though deep-- atmosphere proved to be a rounded concept.

All those efforts and contributions had made Luz Katharine to be apppreciated and beloved by peruvians and by figures as Eva Ayllón, Susana Baca and even by the most orthodox figures of peruvian "Criolla" music. She has been given the "Música Perú" brand by the National Peruvian Board. She is called by the peruvians their "princesa mestiza" ("mestizo princess") and asked to show Peruvian music to the world.

Researcher, singer, guitarist, composer, choreographer and dancer, she is a tireless traveler, she has travelled throughout South America, reconstructing her soft and deep links with the musical traditions of African heritage on the continent. She has explored music and culture of Bolivia, Uruguay, Salvador de Bahia, Cartagena de Indias and even Central Africa.

As many peruvians Luz Katharine has a very mixed blood background. Originally born at the heart of the Andes, Cusco, she has Andean, Spaniard, Black, "Moor" and Gypsy ascendance. This is why she also did research on the history of the Moorish and Moorish women presence in colonial and republican Peruvian time, a forgotten aspect in local music today. As part of this project, she travelled the Mediterranean, from Istanbul and Greece to Andalusia or Morocco but she returns often to where her heart leads: The Andes or especially to the north of Peru, to the ports that received her Gypsy-"Moors" grandparents in early twentieth century.

She collaborates with some of the most important Peruvian musicians and musicologists. Unlike what is being done today, her ensemble uses instruments that were used in colonial and republican times that are almost lost in the music of the coast and northern Peru today. Instruments like harp, bandurria o checo. There is a good reason for that: Andeans were present with their harps, black with the checo, the lute used by moors was replaced by the guitar trough history, but the bandurria played by Spaniards or the Gypsies who populated the north of Peru was transformated but remained. All cultural mixture gathered around music. This is Peru through history and today.

Her repertoire is a geographical and temporal journey from tunes of the seventeenth century (grandparents of the Tondero and Marinera) to the frenzied, sensual and hypnotic rhythms of today black Peruvian music, the Northern Peruvian Music and also Andean music, only freed from the current touristic clichés. She also has a very well selected international music repertoire.

On stage, Luz Katharine and her musicians and dancers is a joyful, sentimental, colourful and even franzy experience.

participating in

  • WOMEX 2012

Members

You must be logged in to see the company members.