For now, the group has put out 3,000 copies to be sold at the Archdiocese bookstore.
Cuenca
Behind the bars of the Turi Center for the Deprivation of Liberty (CPL), in Cuenca, interesting projects are being prepared. In the midst of the state of exception established in the Ecuadorian prison system, in the face of constant disturbances in several prisons, a group of ten people deprived of liberty released a record of Christmas carols recorded in a studio set up inside one of the pavilions.
For now, the group has put out 3,000 copies and the money from the sales will go to power the site’s music school.
Ten months ago in the CPL of Turi all the inmates were summoned to participate in a workshop to build Andean instruments based on bamboo cane and PVC pipes as raw material.
There was a welcome and soon after they had quenas, hovers, flutes, a guitar and a bass drum. To validate them, they were taken to the Conservatory of Music in Cuenca, where they were told that they sounded good and could be used better.
With this second motivation, those deprived of liberty and the prison authorities set a second goal: record a Christmas carol record.
One of the most enthusiastic in the project is Jorge A., who made contact with a recording studio until they took their equipment to the radio booth that exists in the educational pavilion and where the program has been broadcast for ten years Voices of the Soul.
As they rehearse every afternoon, in a month they finished. The result of this adventure was a CD (compact disc) with six songs in the rhythm of ballads, albazo and sanjuanito.
Jorge details that with effort and vision they captured the issues In the arms of a maiden, I do not know Beautiful child, Silent night, Traveler child, Sumac Jesus Y I sing for peace, the last two are unpublished.
About Sumac Jesus there is a particularity, which is sung in Spanish and Quechua, while the I sing for peace It is an evocation of that feeling, in the midst of the prison crisis that the country is experiencing.
Arturo S., another member of the group, has been detained for seven years and there is still a long way to go before he completes his sentence. He was born in Huaquillas, El Oro province, and according to what he says, one of his virtues was not music. Even so, he went to the workshop and then stayed in the group, which was baptized as Vientos de Libertad. A prowler hangs on his chest and in his hand he holds a maraca. Now he says he feels a little calmer because art makes the sentence more bearable.
His relatives do not know that he learned to play, but he is sure that it will be a pleasant surprise.
Jorge comments that with the help of the Prison Ministry they managed to have their records sold in the library of the Local archdiocese, located on Bolívar and Luis Cordero streets.
They ask people to support them by acquiring one because the following The step is to create the first music school inside a prison, in Ecuador.
The price of each CD is $ 3, with the plus that the case was also made by prisoners of liberty.
For his part, Ulises Astudillo, director of CPL Turi, invited people to break the stigma that exists over prisons that only bad things happen, and affirmed that there is also effort and rehabilitation. (I)
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