Between 1848 and 1888, several members of the Echeverría family compiled and collected a total of 78 music scores in a binder’s volume. This bound collection of musical scores and other miscellaneous documents belonged to sisters Ana and Cristina Echeverría, who performed the music contained in this binder’s volume at salon gatherings held in Bogotá. Printed and handwritten, the sheet music found in Ana and Cristina Echeverría's binder’s volume feature works by composers such as José María Ponce de León (Bogotá, Colombia), and Jesús María Suárez (Caracas, Venezuela), as well the music of Ana and Cristina's cousin, Rosa Echeverría (Santa Marta, Colombia). This digital exhibition tells the story of this binder’s volume and of its owners. The exhibition also explores the music practices formed around this musical object, the sonic and material flows materialized in the sheet music itself, and everything else that can be told about this particular binder’s volume that accompanied the Echeverria family’s evenings throughout the mid-to-late 19th century.

 

Coleccionistas de Sonidos. Siglo XIX: El álbum musical de Ana y Cristina Echeverría (“Sound Collectors, 19th Century: Ana and Cristina Echeverría’s Binder’s Volume”) features 5 rooms that you can access by using the navigation bar at the top of this page.

 

The exhibition is available in English and Spanish. The exhibition contains literary and visual tours of late 19th-century Colombia, multimedia sound maps, digitized manuscripts, and a virtual classroom where you can download free items such as an ebook of edited scores, all of the musical recordings featured in the exhibition, and teaching guides that you can use in your classrooms.