Thursday 12th March 2026   1300 - 1400

Cosmo Rodewald Concert Hall

Martin Harris Centre

University of Manchester

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Admission free

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Ñandereko is a new dramatic cantata by Chilean composer Ramon Gorigoitia which weaves Indigenous songs from the Ava Guarani people of Northern Argentina into a contemporary sonic landscape, telling the story of the extraction of these songs under conditions of duress by a German anthropologist, Robert Lehmann Nitsche, in 1905. The singers were being held in bonded labour on a sugar plantation, La Esperanza, in the Jujuy province that was owned and managed by British industrialists from Rochdale, the Leach Brothers. Lehmann Nitsche recorded the songs on wax cylinders (an early recording device) and brought them to Berlin, where they remain in the Berliner Phonogramm-Archiv of the Humboldt Forum.

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Ñandereko mixes extracts from these songs with accounts from the diaries of Lehmann Nitsche and other textual materials to tell a profoundly moving story of exploitation of Indigenous South American people by European colonialists, but also of the resilience of the Indigenous voice and its ever-present call for justice and reparation.

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The project is the original conception of the Argentinian tenor Rafael Montero, founder and artistic director of the early music ensemble El Parnaso Hyspano, and a descendent of the people whose songs are represented in this composition. Montero will be the singer, and he is joined on stage by a hand-picked ensemble of specialist contemporary performers, mostly of Latin American descent: Sergio Teran (Flutes, Ethnic Aerophones, Saxophone); Isaac Andrés Espinoza Hidrobo (violin, strings); Leonard Gincberg {drums, percussion); Ramon Gorigoitia (piano, keyboards), with visual materials by videographer Antonio Uscategui.

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NOTE: Following the concert, participants are invited to come along to Manchester Museum to chat with performers and organisers, and attend an object session concentrated on South American collections. Spaces are limited on the day.

A linked free public seminar/roundtable exploring the issues raised by the work will follow at 4.30pm in the Music Department’s weekly seminar series.

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The production’s logo contains a traditional symbol of the Guaraní people’s cycle of communal work and ritual celebration.

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This project is financially supported by the Esperanza Trust for Anthropological Research.