Pasatono Orquesta

His work expresses the feeling of the heritage of ancient harmonies with arrangements and versions that include diverse musical influences, among which are the old Dixieland jazz, the African rhythms present in danzón and rumba, and the Hungarian rhythms that arrived with the gypsy caravans that brought cinema to the villages. In addition, its traditional music brings together melodies of different origins and periods, such as Chilean music, and European sounds such as polka, pasodoble (double-step) march and mazurka.  

Pasatono Orchestra, whose name pays tribute to the way in which the old Mixtec musicians named the violin or bass fretboard, aims to give continuity to the use of emblematic instruments for the region that are in danger of disappearing, as is the case of the bajo quinto (fifth bass), a stringed instrument larger than a guitar, with five pairs of metal strings that function as two instruments in one: the first with bass function, and the other with harmonic and counterpoint accompaniment. 

Under the direction of the composer and interpreter of this instrument, Rubén Luengas, all these manifestations have been shared by Pasatono Orchestra throughout its twenty-five year trajectory.  

After a journey of years through Guerrero, Puebla, Oaxaca and the transnational Mixtec community, this initiative, formed in 2008, has been nourished by the guardians of the music of the “people of the clouds”, considered as “living treasures”, such as luthiers, bass players, banjo players, violinists and composers possessing plenty of knowledge. “Pasatono resists leaving in oblivion the sounds with which our grandparents founded the villages, the music that brightened the fandangos, the instruments that buried our dead and the songs with which we were born, and as Mixtecs of today, we are sure that our origin is our destiny,” says Luengas, also a luthier and researcher.  

Pasatono Orchestra has performed at Lincoln Center in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago, Summer Festival at Bard College, University of Oregon, Stanford University, Houston Miller Theater, Smithsonian Art Institute, the National Center for the Arts in Mexico City and the Henestrosa Library in Oaxaca. But he has never left the fandangos in the communities of El Jicaral, Coicoyán de las Flores or Yucuquimi de Ocampo, in his native Oaxaca.