The Zarabanda Variations - Paperback

by Edgar Garcia (Author), Keir Gogwilt (Author)

Traces the buried colonial roots of baroque music through poetry and improvisation with ten musicians from across the Americas

This combined chapbook and musical album collects the work of a group of musicians convened by violinist and composer, Keir GoGwilt. The Zarabanda Variations also features Edgar Garcia's prose, poetry, and performances, creating a space for the textual, visual, and musical components of the project to be in conversation. Through these various media, the artists traverse the colonial histories of musical dances like the zarabanda, which eventually became known as the Sarabande in European Baroque culture. The result is a multimedia collage of musical traditions, personal reflections, original compositions and improvisations, which challenge the projected unity of the Baroque by drawing from the fractured, migratory reality of its past and future. Other contributors (also featured on the album): Wilfrido Terrazas, Mariana Flores Bucio, Vicente Atria, Miranda Cuckson, Carrie Frey, John Popham, Alec Goldfarb, Kyle Motl, and Jonny Allen.

Author Biography

EDGAR GARCIA is associate professor of English at the University of Chicago, where he is affiliated with the Program in Creative Writing. He is the author of Emergency: Reading the Popol Vuh in a Time of Crisis, Skins of Columbus: A Dream Ethnography, and Signs of the Americas: A Poetics of Pictography, Hieroglyphs, and Khipu. KEIR GOGWILT is a violinist and composer whose work combines historical and musicological research with collaborative experimentation. A founding member of the American Modern Opera Company (AMOC), he has performed original work at Baryshnikov Arts Center, Luminato Festival, American Repertory Theater, and the Ojai Music Festival, and has published written work in Bach Journal, Current Musicology, Naxos Musicology, Tempo, and the Orpheus Institute Series.