A view of Venezuelan Music

With the goal of making known the music of Venezuela, this instrumental group offers a repertoire that is a mixture of popular, folk and chamber music elements.

While improvisation (latin jazz influences) and original creations are key elements of its approach, Çavana remains in a context that is true to Venezuelan musical traditions (a phenomenon well known in Cuban, Argentinean and Brazilian music, among others).

A quartet formed Montreal, Canada in 2002, Çavana gathers three Venezuelan born musicians: Ingrid Astudillo (piano and cuatro), René Orea (flute and cuatro) and Alejandro Rodriguez (bass, guitar and cuatro), and the Montrealer Evan Green (guitars and clarinet).

Çavana strikes for its well-woven and solid arrangements, as well as the professionalism of its performers. It’s a generous group that knows how to communicate to an audience a whole range of emotions that go from joy to nostalgia, always with an intensity that won’t leave anyone indifferent.

Çavana will take you to the center of Venezuela’s musical soul. If Çavana fits perfectly into any Latin or World Music programming (or disc collection!), its concept allows it also into the context of a Chamber Music or Jazz Festival.

A constantly renewed tradition: this is the nature of the music of Venezuela. Çavana searches a balance between traditional and modern languages, and variety of sounds through the versatility of instruments like the cuatro, piano, guitar, bass, clarinet and flute, which have always been a part of Venezuela’s musical culture, even since the colonial period.

This ensemble will perform rhythms like the joropo, the gaita and danza zuliana, the waltz, the songs of work and especially the guasa or Venezuelan merengue (a dance that is exclusive to Venezuela, with a particularly uplifting and syncopated rhythm, mixture between 5/8 and 6/8).

Çavana invites the public to discover such rich and unknown music.