Music of the Andes

Now more than 50 years ago, Mario P. Gutierrez founded the group Los Ruphay in the city of La Paz, Bolivia. In the Quechua language of the Andean region, "Ruphay" means "Warmth of the Sun". Mario P. Gutierrez lived and died with a steadfast dedication to preserve and promote Bolivian music. While his death in 1994 was a great loss for Bolivian traditional music, his legacy is upheld in Los Ruphay, who continue to record and perform into their sixth decade as a group. Mario left behind him a wealth of compositions embodying a cry of rebellion against the injustices faced by the Andean peoples over centuries. It is in this spirit that Los Ruphay release this, their twentieth album. Ruphay's music carries with it a philanthropic message of hope for the Andean people. They perform to portray the realities and principles of their traditional ways, and to remind the world that they are there and are not about to disappear from history; to forge their own identity, and to break free from the shackles of colonization. It was the wish of the master, Mario P. Gutierrez, "that modern man change his way of thinking and come to understand that we are star dust vibrating together in the universal sound".