Musicologist Vivianne Asturizaga breathes into her flute to reveal the sounds of history that shape the soundscape of tomorrow. 

Soundscaping Home

The Latin American country of Bolivia shares its borders with Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, Peru, and Chile. Partially nestled amongst the Andes Mountains in South America, the land balances stunning snow-capped mountains, highland rainforests, and valleying warm lands to deliver a vast beauty reflected by its people. But for one native, the soundscape and musical connectedness defines her home and her people. Professional flutist and educator Vivianne Asturizaga has dedicated her professional life to researching the soundscapes of her home, La Paz, Bolivia, as a way to understand the culture and music. Her desire to capture culture within music stems from Bolivia’s rich musica folclórica. “In La Paz, it’s one of those things where music is everywhere. There’s a lot of dancing; there’s folk dancing. My mom and father, they would sing… everyone would grab the guitar, and we’d all be singing popular tunes,” shares Asturizaga. “So, I grew up hearing all of that, going to concerts and dancing. In school, you would do folk dancing …You learn how to dance when you are growing up in that soundscape.” Asturizaga believes our environment can inform our understanding of a place and discover its cultural influence on popular music genres heard throughout. 

Finding a Voice through Education

The correlation between culture and music fills our histories. Be it the cumbia and salsa beats heard throughout South America or the Baroque music that filled the courts of the 1600s and 1700s, the dance of the day resonates with the culture it moves. This desire to find the links between different times and sonic ideas has fueled Asturizaga’s academic and artistic journey. For over thirty years, Asturizaga has played the flute. She studied music at nine and eventually graduated from Bolivia’s National Conservatory of Music. A chance encounter with Swiss flutist Eva Amsler changed the course of Asturizaga’s career. “I heard her, and I knew I wanted to study with her.” said Asturizaga. After a few academic jumps with the help of a Fulbright assistantship, she finally landed at Florida State University’s College of Music alongside Professor Amsler and Valerie Arsenault, director of the FSU Baroque Ensemble. Asturizaga earned a Masters of Music in Flute Performance and Ethnomusicology, two Master of Arts degrees in Arts Administration and Spanish Linguistics, and a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology at Florida State University (FSU).

Her academic work has opened her practical understanding of the instrument. Asturizaga explains that playing the flute is all about the air, which ties back to the voice. She claims that the growth of her musical capacity has mirrored that of her physical growth. “I grew my lungs and my capacity to project… This is not something you learn from the beginning; you [learn to] project, and then suddenly my sneeze and my laughter is like, ‘HELLO’ and it’s all because of the flute.” Asturizaga relates this to the expanding of different layers of breath from within. She extends this musical revelation into a broader need for women, especially Latinas brought up in a highly patriarchal society, to gain ownership over their own voices and ask for what they deserve. 

Bringing Baroque Back

For an artist to master one instrument in a lifetime is a wonder. But for an artist to master that same instrument in a variety of forms is outright mindblowing. Asturizaga’s involvement with the Tallahassee Bach Parley, a baroque ensemble that uses period instruments to share Baroque-era music with Tallahassee, has allowed her to explore the flute’s evolution. Performing on period-style instruments offers a unique experience to the audience and the performer to deliver informed historical performances with a fresh sound. Like her ensemble musicians, Asturizaga is formally trained on historical instruments such as the traverso wooden flute or the 16th-century Latin American quena flute, all replicas of the times. Asturizaga expands upon this difference in sound quality. “I can answer just with one word, ‘sound.’ Each sound has different qualities. So when you have ‘sooooooound’, this is long. Sound can be ‘short-long, short- long’, the articulation. And then [with] the dynamic, you can go ‘VERY LOUD’ to ‘very soft’. It gives you a sonic difference that doesn’t happen with the modern instruments.

On June 4th, Asturizaga joins Tallahassee Bach Parley as they present Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, written in 1719 by Johann Sebastian Bach. This performance pays homage to musicians of the Baroque era with what Asturizaga considers some of the best solos for harp, flute, and violin. “[They are] the meat of the concerto. [The concerto] is a popular chamber music as well. This is something that is widely played. “It has three movements-[a] fast tempo, something jumpy-funny, and then something more meditative, which is Affettuoso in B minor, and then an Allegro just to celebrate [at the end].” The concerto also celebrates Asturizaga time with Bach Parley, as she moves to a new position at California State this summer. But no matter where she performs, she will continue to combine ancient and modern musical soundscapes.

Read the article on the Tallahassee Democrat.