The hands at work onstage are impressive enough.
At regular intervals during the first visit by Quilapayun to Edinburgh for 20 years, the thought occurred that whoever is responsible for making sure every one of these instruments being pressed into service makes it to the next concert is performing a Herculean task.
Quilapayun need this collection of wooden flutes, various strings, frets, keyboards and percussion to effect their transition from the folkloric voice of the Chilean people in the 1960s and early 1970s through classically trained sophistication and on to quite the party band. It's like watching, in the space of 90 minutes, the Spinners morph into Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club.
Like exiles the world over, they haven't forgotten their roots and their dedications to national heroes, be they poets or presidents, and ordinary citizens alike positively brim with beautifully harmonised fervour. The vocal arrangement that imparted Uruguayan activist Daniel Viglietti's Por Ellos Canto would have done credit to Brian Wilson and the impassioned singing of Ramona Parra, a young woman shot dead in a 1946 Santiago demonstration, ensured its heroine's spirit remains vividly alive.
All the while, the 14-string tiple passes through various hands, guitars are strummed, a snare drum is stroked with casual expertise, maracas briefly shake, flutes intone their descants and the pan pipe's dual role as melody and rhythm instrument is brilliantly underlined before first, something akin to Chilean salsa, brings the isolated pockets of dancing in the audience together in jubilation and then band and audience unite in a defiant Chilean anthem that makes stepping out on to Lothian Road afterwards feel slightly alien.
HHHH
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article