Concert: Old Cabell Hall

Thursday, February 22, 2024. 7 pm

Free concert for all. General admision
After January 24, reserve tickets electronically.
After January 31, reserve tickets also in person/by phone.

Reserve your tickets:

Old Cabell Hall: Getting There

My music is...

“a combination of cumbia, reggae and rock with the traditional music from my people,” “The principal themes I write about are Indigenous women, resistance, history and rights of women.”
Sara Curruchich in Austin, March 27, 2023 .

Sara Curruchich, Maya Kaqchikel Guatemalan singer-songwriter is the first indigenous Guatemalan singer and songwriter to sing in Kaqchikel (her mother tongue), as well as Spanish, for an international audience.
Her voice and message of love, awareness, respect and defense of life in all its forms, have led many people to regard her as a beacon of light and hope.
Her music blends various genres such as rock, folk and traditional Mayan Kaqchikel music. Sara music focuses primarily on the experiences of Indigenous people, bringing traditional Guatemalan music and modern sounds together to reflect the diversity and history of her people.

I began to sing in my language.

"I have tried to make that fusion between traditional Guatemalan music and contemporary instruments and sounds". "I began to sing in my language and write and compose because I saw a necessity and an importance to rescue our languages, my language specifically, through music. Music induces reflection maybe more than when you speak to a child about its importance..."

... If they listen and see someone else doing it [singing in Kaqchikel], they think that they can do it too and that they have a right to do it. They understand that it’s not bad and can begin to see the value again. So I started writing in Spanish, in Kaqchikel, making some songs only in Spanish, others only in Kaqchikel and some fusing both languages because I do think this is a channel to reaffirm our identity and the ancestral knowledge of our communities"

My mission is to share with girls and boys that we as Indigenous peoples exist. And we exist in a big way of resistance too. My mission is to share with people that history does not begin and end with: “The Spanish came and they gave us mirrors. The end.” I think that through music I can share all of this history, this historical memory as an Indigenous woman. I have realized that the level of discrimination, of rejection, of lack of opportunities is much greater towards us as Indigenous women. We have a triple discrimination: for being women, for being Indigenous women, and for being Indigenous women who are poor.

Extracts from "Melodies of resistance in Guatemala: the Kaqchikel artist speaking out through song" By Emma Yee Yick . Interview published in Assembly, a Malala Fund publication, May 1, 2019.

Sara in the maize fields in Comalapa.