Los Koyas
Los Koyas is a folk music group composed of five soloists who perform musical pieces and songs of twelve Latin American countries, from the Andes to Cuba.
Created in 1970 by Domingo Fontana, the group started its career with a tour of 128 concerts in France during the winter of 1970-1971. Its main recordings, distributed worldwide by the Barclay Records label, contributed to the spread of Latin American traditional music in many countries.
If titles such as El condor pasa and Virgenes del sol are among the tunes that allowed the group to stand out a few months after its creation, a varied repertoire is the trademark of Los Koyas when performing on stage, using many popular instruments such as:
- the Andean flutes (quena, quenacho, siku)
- the harp (from Paraguay, Venezuela, Colombia and Mexico)
- the charango (the 10-string instrument sometimes made with an armadillo shell) and the ronroco
- the cuatro, a small 4-string guitar from Colombia and Venezuela
- the guitar
- the violin
- rhythm instruments such as the bombo, the guiro, the maracas, the bongos...
In 2009, Los Koyas released an album to which Jaime Torres, the charango soloist from Argentina, brings his personal touch.
Discography
Hereunder is the main recordings of Los Koyas that were issued between 1970 and 2009.
Official LP albums of Los Koyas
- Au son de la flûte indienne Volume 1 (Barclay Records)
- Au son de la flûte indienne Volume 2 (Barclay Records)
- Au son de la flûte indienne Volume 3 "kena Inmortal" (Barclay Records)
- Variations (Barclay Records)
- Mosaïque (Barclay Records)
- Le Top des Andes (Atoll Music)
- Flûtes des Andes - Les plus grands thèmes
- Voyage au coeur de l'Amérique latine (2009)
Official single recordings of Los Koyas
- Ave Maria / Les Quatre Saisons (Barclay Records)
- Aria / Modinha (Barclay Records)
External links
- Los Koyas - music and songs from Latin America
- Mp3 extracts from "Voyage au coeur de l'Amérique latine" recorded in 2009 by Los Koyas together with Jaime Torres
- Misa Criolla (samples) by Los Koyas
- Misa Criolla - Kyrie, by Los Koyas
- video of latin-american music and songs, by Los Koyas
- A page dedicated to the quena flute form South America
- A page dedicated to the charango, the string instrument from the Andes
- A page dedicated to the Latin American harp
- A Page dedicated to the pan pipes from South America
- Musique from the Andes
- El condor pasa
- World music
- Misa Criolla and Navidad Nuestra
- Páginas web en castellano del grupo LOS KOYAS (música de América latina, música de los Andes, música de América del sur)
References and other sources
- The article related to Los Koyas in the French version of Wikipedia (French)
- The following labels that chose to press the Los Koyas recordings under the Barclay records licence for their own markets (the labels of all other countries would simply import the products in their original versions):
- Movieplay (Spain)
- King records (Japan)
- Metronome (Germany)
- Ricordi (Italy)
- Codiscos (Colombia)
- Musart (Mexico)
- Sonido (Nicaragua)
- Festival (Australia)
- Festival (New Zealand)