Pirarucú de Oro Festival: Lyrics and Music in Honor of the Amazon jungle

Wednesday, 25 November 2009 00:00

The pirarucú is an enormous fish, characteristic of the Colombian Amazon jungle, which can measure up to four meters. It was precisely in honor of this species that the Pirarucú Festival, also called the International Festival of Amazonian Music (Finmupa, by its acronym in Spanish), got its name. The celebration has been taking place in Leticia, capital city of the department of Amazonas, since 1987.

Aside from being a cultural festival in which the region’s music predominates, the Pirarucú de Oro is a call to the preservation of the enormous natural resources of the Amazon, where participating artists, tourists, and inhabitants meet at the triple frontier of Colombia, Brazil, and Peru.

The pirarucú is an enormous fish, characteristic of the Colombian Amazon, which can measure up to four meters and which gave its name to the Festival.

Taking their inspiration from Indian communities, the jungle, the fauna and flora, and the wealth of the Amazon River, singers and composers of the region’s music come together during the final days of November to compete in several Pirarucú de Oro categories, among them, Leticia street musicians, amateur singers, music and dance montages, and unpublished songs.

The Amazon is one of the most biodiverse zones on our planet.

Although the Festival awards trophies and prizes in cash, the greatest honor is to obtain the Pirarucú de Oro, an exclusive award reserved for the best interpreters of regional musical airs and, above all, for those who best recreate the vast nature of the Amazon while calling the world’s attention to the permanent care we must bestow upon one of the planet’s most biodiverse areas.