Ecuador Pillajo and Marcela Ramos have a happy marriage with music

The first time they played together was very significant, back in 1998. Marcela sang with her guitar a musical piece by the Italian composer Nino Rota, which is part of the film’s soundtrack. The Godfather (1972), during a family reunion to which Ecuador was invited as his former violin teacher and good friend. Suddenly, he was motivated to accompany her with that instrument when he noticed that she interpreted the song in the same musical tone that he knew. And the magic began.

“Everyone stared at us in surprise at how good we sounded without even having rehearsed”, Ecuador remembers about that moment when the chemistry between the two was explicit. “You are losing money,” an uncle of hers managed to tell them as if to suggest that they should dedicate themselves to playing together as a permanent duo, which turned out to be a premonition. And they went much further! Given that they were married three years later, 20 years ago.

Ecuador Pillajo and Marcela Ramos have a story that sounds musical, which now has them as members of the Guayaquil Symphony Orchestra (OSG). He is the first violin (or concertmaster, that is, the third authority, after the director and deputy director) and she is in charge of the percussions, having the marimba as her favorite instrument.

In addition, they share as a private duet of music that usually plays in elegant social gatherings. “In small events there is a special closeness to the public, they ask us for songs and we try to please them”, indicates Marcela, who plays the guitar for those occasions. If the audience is older than 50 or 60 years of age, they generally like classical music, so the themes of Nino Rota, Charles Aznavour o Stéphane Grappelli. For audiences of other ages, they put together a repertoire that Marcela calls “the mixes”, with Latin American music, American pop and national songs, with infallible themes such as Tobacco and Chanel, Thriller, Hotel California and Avocado.

See excerpts of their presentations in the Ecuador account on Instagram. Also in the Marcela’s account.

Prodigy since childhood

Ecuador Pillajo is also considered a “mix”. “My father was from Paute (Azuay) and my mother from an area between Milagro and Naranjito (Guayas), where I was born, on October 27, 1965 ″, he explains as a happy coincidence, since on that date, but in the year 1782, the Italian composer and violinist Niccolò Paganini was born, whom he admires in a special way for having brought that instrument to high places.

Apparently his path in music was predestined. At the age of 11 he had already won the national violin competition. “I entered the José María Rodríguez Conservatory at the age of 9, but already before I did something with music at home, since my older brother, Jorge, played the violin in the Cuenca Symphony (they lived in that city) and he took me to the conservatory”. So between “envy and curiosity” he began to study it.

“Experts say that the violin was created to imitate the human voice… Animals as well. Paganini himself, as a whim, imitated the whistle that the donkey makes. That attracts me. Its depth, knowing that it has many possibilities. The violin was made to be a soloist ”, explains about his preference for that instrument so steeped in history in classical music.

At the age of 15, in 1980, he arrived in Guayaquil because he wanted to continue learning. He was accepted into the Guayaquil Symphony Orchestra by the then director, the prestigious Spanish teacher José Barniol Álvarez, who also took it as a student, which consolidated a nascent career that over the years led him to be concertmaster of the National Symphony Orchestra (in Quito) and to stand out in meetings of world significance, such as the Henryk Szeryng International Violin Competition (Mexico, 1994), which lasted 40 days. , in which he ranked ninth among more than 300 violinists.

The guayaca marimba

Marcela Ramos began in music at the age of 11, playing a guitar that her grandfather gave her, as well as a book with chords. He intoned by ear, empirically, but began to stand out at his school events. Three years later he entered the Antonio Neumane Conservatory, where he studied violin (Ecuador was one of his last teachers).

He also studied symphonic percussion, taking advantage of the arrival of a Russian expert who formed a group of young people to teach them instruments such as timpani, snare, lyre, xylophone, vibraphone, triangle and tambourine. In addition, an instrument that especially captivated her: the marimba. “It is like a giant piano, two meters long, so to move I have to jump. I play with four drumsticks. It is something very physical ”, He mentions about that “instrument with very warm sounds” closely related to Afro-Ecuadorian culture. “But the esmeraldeña marimba is made of chonta and the symphonic one is made of synthetic material.” In addition, it generally has 12 or 24 keys and the symphony can reach 60.

The Russian teacher left, but she continued in a self-taught way. “I always try to keep learning. I’m still a student ”, She also mentions a trilingual business management engineer (Spanish, English and French) who decided to concentrate her professional activity on music, precisely in the Guayaquil Symphony Orchestra, to which she has belonged since 1999.

Marcela is also a surfer, so she has a great connection with the ocean, which she shares with her husband and two children: Mayte (14 years old, pianist) and Diego (8 years old). “We live in Playas, in a house with a large patio and six dogs and a score of cats that we have rescued from the street,” he says.

Music, love, family, nature, work, meetings, concerts, pets … Their lives have various elements that sound like a great symphony. (I)

Varied groups: Ecuador Pillajo and Marcela Ramos play in duet, but they also have several professional musicians to form great bands that are hired at events. Contact: 099-754-1565.