This feature is Aurelio Diaz’s rendition of “el condor pasa”. Please take a few minutes to listen to “el condor pasa” by sovroncourt before going on to listen to Aurelio’s rendition. Enjoy!
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An introduction to sovroncourt’s “el condor pasa” by Jennifer Hurst
For the past few weeks I’ve been listening to “waves and wheels” whenever I’m in the car. I was hooked at the revival of the Peruvian folk song “Paso Del Condor”, which was covered by Simon & Garfunkel in my youth. Sovroncourt’s version is original. It retains a thread of independence tempered by love, while keeping a great song in the vernacular. What, I wonder, would the nail, the street, and the snail say?
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An introduction to Aurelio Diaz’s autoharp/castanet rendition of “el condor pasa” by Jason Kaufman
“The Condor Passes” was written by Peruvian composer Daniel Alomía Robles in 1913. It is based on traditional Andean folk tunes, which are older yet. The song has taken various manifestations, most popularly by Simon & Garfunkel in the 70’s, and now a hundred years later Cameron Sharp has added another layer of adaptation to the song’s history. Concerning his further rendition Diaz said, “I omitted the bridge of the song to make it less melancholy, but tried my best to keep Cameron’s melody styles. His styling is much different than the original and I wanted to tackle the song with equal ambition. My first decision was to sing it in Spanish.” Thus after 100 years the Peruvian folk song has returned to its Hispanic roots.
Voices from the Borderlands 