Baroque meets indigenous music culture.

You can experience history in the museum, reading books and looking at old pictures. However, living history – penetrating into past times and getting knowledge of past cultures –  requires more senses.

The "Sonidos de la Tierra" (“Sounds of the world”)  from Paraguay offer a living history experience on their concert tour through 17 cities in Europe. From 22 June to 7 July, the orchestra is giving concerts in Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Germany and Hungary and playing in church services. Under the motto "Baroque meets indigenous music culture", compositions by the Italian and Swiss Jesuit missionaries in Latin America, Domenico Zipoli SJ (1688-1726) and Martin Schmid SJ (1694-1772), as well as by Julian Atirahu, are performed. Atirahu was an indian musician from the Guaraní ethnic group who had been trained in Paraguay in a Jesuit mission village (so-called reductions) in the 18th century. In addition, the "Misa Guaraní" (Guaraní Fair) is on the agenda, which is oriented to the liturgical songs of that era.

In 2002, the musicologist Luis Szarán, conductor and director of the Symphony of Asunción (OSCA), founded the music and social project Sonidos de La Tierra. Szarán, a multi-award-winning musician, pursues the approach of education through art. Music changes the lives of the disadvantaged, of which Szarán is convinced. He puts it this way: "Who plays Mozart during the day, does not throw windows at night."

The aim of the music project is to bring together young and poor people about making music and singing, giving them a task and building a culture of responsibility and respect. Over the past 15 years, 18,000 children and young people and their families have participated in the project. Sonidos de la Tierra is now a nationwide network of free music schools, orchestras, choirs, music festivals and crafts companies for instrument making in more than 200 localities of the country. The members of Sonidos de la Tierra were honored by UNESCO as "artists for peace" at the end of 2016 in Paris.

All information about the concerts and the dates can be found here: https://www.jesuitenmission.de/news/sonidos-de-la-tierra-in-europa.html

The tour is  accompanied by the exhibition "The Jesuit Reductions of Paraguay": https://www.jesuitenmission.de/medien/ausstellungen/reduktionen.html

The DVD "The Heritage of the Sacred Experiment", edited by the Jesuit Missions of Germany, Austria and Switzerland in cooperation with "Loyola Productions Munich", makes the reductions experienceable. Three films illuminate new discoveries and reconstruction of the reductions from 1958 to today: https://www.jesuitenmission.de/medien/filme/das-erbe-des-heiligen-experimentes.html

On the project page you can find all information about the social project "Sonidos de la Tierra": https://www.jesuitenmission.de/projekte/projekte-in-lateinamerika/paraguay/musikprojekt.html