Maria Privado

Graduate Student in Music

Overview

I am a Guatemalan sociologist, trained in Guatemala and Mexico. My research work has focused on the contemporary Guatemalan composer Joaquín Orellana, mainly on the strong roots of his music in the Guatemalan history of violence, pain, and hope; I have also researched the singing of Q'eqchi' women, exploring their voices not only as memories but also as struggles and challenges. My research is also from a collective point of view to understand more about the Q'eqchi' women and other cultural aspects that come with the singing.

I am interested in exploring the politics of the silencing in Mayan music as a multifaceted phenomenon shaped through space and time. It is my aim to bring light to the silencing and emphasize that it is not for lack of creative potential or inexistence of cultural creation, but it is silence and oppression in their complexity. 

Top