Agustín Barrios "Mangoré" - An expert on my field.

 

 

Because music is my field of activity, specifically classical guitar performance, I have decided to talk about a guitarist and composer named Agustín Barrios “Mangoré”. This guitarist was born in 1885, in Paraguay and died in 1944, in El Salvador. His father was Argentine, but from the side of his mother he had Guarani bloodline. He is one of the most important figures in paraguayan culture and also in Latin America. He traveled through many countries and cities in Latin America, where he learned and rescued traditional dances and songs from almost all Latin American countries. His musical language is a mixture of Latin American folk music and European classical music. His concert programs included both the music of Bach and Beethoven, as well as his own compositions and folkloric pieces. It became known throughout Latin America under the pseudonym “Nitsuga Mangoré”, “Nitsuga” by Agustín written backwards, and “Mangoré” in honor of a legendary Guaraní cacique. In his research to represent his culture, Mangoré even costumed himself as a Guaraní indigenous for his concerts.

Agustín Barrios Mangoré is currently one of the most played composer by classical guitarists worldwide. His work includes around 300 pieces for solo guitar, for example, dances, preludes, studies and fantasies. In my opinion, he is one of the most important figures in the history of Latin American music and the guitar, because he transcended to the present day thanks to his investigative work, collecting folk music and taking it to the top of the culture. He is an artist and a role model that I greatly admire, and my personal project about music is inspired in Barrios, because I want to perform latinoamerican music, create a mixture of folclore and classical music, write my owns compositions, and rescue the typical music of us culture, similar to what Barrios did.