Juanes and Fonseca add their voices to ‘Canta Llano’, a tribute album to Arnulfo Briceño

The voices of Colombian singers Juanes and Fonseca joined other national performers and the Venezuelan Reynaldo Armas in ‘Canta Llano’, an album of 14 songs recorded in tribute to Arnulfo Briceño, a reference in llanera music, on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of his death.

The album, produced by the brothers Emmanuel and Arnulfo Briceño, sons of maestro Briceño, under the Universal Music label “emotionally portrays his career and his cultural legacy, while renewing his musical catalog,” the producers reported this Friday.

All the songs on the album were composed by Arnulfo Briceño (1938-1989), one of the great composers and performers of llanera music, lawyer and choral director who left an extensive catalog of works of Colombian music.

Among his compositions included on the album are ‘Ay! My Plain’, inspired by the novel ‘La vorágine’, by José Eustasio Rivera, whose first publication marks the centenary this year.

This song is, according to the producers, “a song to the freedom and identity of the eastern region” of Colombia, which was adopted as the anthem of the department of Meta and is performed on the album by several members of his family.

Juanes, for his part, sings ‘Amo’, a song with bolero overtones and with arrangements in which the harp, a fundamental instrument in llanera music, was replaced by the piano. For the children of maestro Briceño, “this song is the jewel of the album.”

For his part, Fonseca performs ‘Siempre mujer’, while Cholo Valderrama, the main Colombian figure of llanera music today and winner of a Latin Grammy, sings ‘Arauca’, an unreleased song dedicated to that region bordering Venezuela.

Other pieces included in the album are ‘I don’t always live singing’, performed by Venezuelan Reynaldo de Armas; ‘Hato Canaguay’ (Walter Silva), ‘I need to love you’ (María Isabel Saavedra) and ‘Goodbye to my Llano’ (Aries Vigoth).

Emmanuel Briceño, one of the composer’s sons, performs ‘María’, while Catalina Briceño, granddaughter of the maestro, sings ‘Sierra La Macarena’, and Esteban Louis gives voice to ‘Canta Llano’, a song that is also the title of the album .

Arnulfo Briceño was born in Arboledas, a town in the department of Norte de Santander, and although he was not from the Llanos Orientales, he fell in love with that region to which he dedicated most of his work.

His death, at the age of 50, occurred on June 12, 1989 in a plane crash when he was heading to Tame, a town in the department of Arauca, for a presentation to mark the 170th anniversary of Simón Bolívar’s Liberation Campaign. , which began precisely in the Eastern Plains.

With information from EFE