Celebrating Chilean Music from the Colonial Villancico to the Nueva Canción

“Explore the sounds of secular and religious music preserved in codices, cathedrals, and missions from across the Americas from the 1600-1800s, sung in Quechua, Chiquitano, and Spanish. Tonos highlights the tremendous variety of rhythms and expressions preserved in these manuscripts, bringing them to life on baroque instruments for audiences today. We string to share this music in a lively and vibrant way, interpreting the often sparse and open-ended original source materials into a transformed experience, to convey the spirit of the way this music was conceived and performed in its day. We are especially excited to share modern premieres of villancicos from the Catedral Metropolitana archive in Santiago, Chile, in partnership with scholar Paul Feller.”

-Latin American Music Festival at the University of Illinois Chicago, and in Bloomington, Indiana, April 2024

Music from New Spanish Convents

“This exceptional Bloomington-born ensemble offers a rare glimpse into the worship of cloistered nuns in New Spain in this premiere performance of villancicos from the Sanchez Garza repertory in Mexico City, one of the largest and most important collections of music composed for and performed by women in Latin America. The program brings to life twelve villancicos out of some 400 liturgical manuscripts played by Santisima Trinidad Convent nuns in Puebla, Mexico, from the late 17th century through the end of the Spanish colonial era, in partnership with UCLA musicologist Cesar Favila and Northwestern musicology PhD candidate Paul Feller.”

-Bloomington Early Music Festival, 2023

Santiago Billoni and Friends

“Santiago Billoni’s music, recently rediscovered in the archives of the Durango Cathedral, Mexico, expresses virtuosity and beauty through unique musical language. Join Tonos, a historically-informed ensemble led by Sarah Cranor, as they share an evening of Billoni’s music and that of his contemporaries, including cantatas in indigenous languages, instrumental and religious music, all exploring rich musical soundscapes from across Latin America during the mid 1700s.”

-Christ Church Cathedral Chamber Concert Series, 2022

María del Pueblo

“In many ways the most central woman to Western classical music, the Virgin Mary has inspired some of the most poignant and beautiful musical moments in the genre. This is particularly striking in Baroque era music from Latin America, with the confluence of European musical aesthetics, indigenous languages, and complex fusion rhythms. An exploration of Marian devotion, María del Pueblo weaves together anonymous and improvised instrumental and vocal works, ranging from anonymous fragments written in Guaraní, to complete settings of the Latin Magnificat text, to examples of Marian devotion in a very local sense.”

-Bloomington Early Music Festival, 2022