Musical Practices and Mobility in Asunción

Book excerpt: The Indigenous musicians from the surrounding pueblos de indios took on a leading role in urban musical activity. Musical Practices and Mobility in Asunción: Indigenous Musicians in Colonial Paraguay sheds light on dynamics that go beyond the studies centered on the doing of Jesuits in missionary contexts and provides a more thorough comprehension of the urban musical models that were imposed and adapted. Indigenous musicians were transferred to the city from the Jesuit reductions and the pueblos under the care of secular and Franciscan priests for festivals and celebrations. Without them, and without the mobilities that placed them in both contexts, Laura Fahrenkrog Cianelli argues the urban institutional-musical model would not have been possible to maintain in that distant corner of the empire. By transcending the city limits imposed by urban approaches, this book enables a novel reading of musical practices in a city connected with its hinterland, revealing the different musical physiognomies of the empire in distant contexts.