International Amazonian Folk Music Festival in Leticia: El Pirarucú de Oro

• Place: Leticia, Amazonas
• Region: Amazonas
• Date: late November to early December, every year
• Duration: 3 days.

The music, culture, and traditions of the Amazon region converge in the international festival of Amazonian folk music by the name of El Pirarucú de Oro. The festival brings together the most important exponents of Amazonian folk music, and rescues and reasserts the values, customs, and traditions that integrate the culture of the three peoples who inhabit this area of the Amazon River basin: Colombia, Brazil, and Perú.

Name of the Festival

The Festival takes its name from the piracurú, or arapaima, an enormous Amazonian fish that can weigh up to 300 kilos and measure over 2.5 meters.

The Pirarucú Festival is held at a time when fishing of the insignia fish of Amazon music is banned.

Efforts to preserve this species are essential to its survival and this is why Colombian and frontier authorities have decreed a tri-national ban on capturing, trading, and storing the fish from November to March. The Festival takes place precisely during the ban, as homage to the emblematic fish of Amazonian music.

Festival Activities

All the themes presented during the Festival are totally representative of the Amazonian context and should be original in lyrics and music. The categories of the contest are the following:

Murgas leticianas

Regional and local songs are interpreted in this category.

Amateur singers

This is another category in which each contestant interprets a different theme in any folk rhythm of the region and accompanied by live music.

Musicalized and choreographed plays

This is the staging of scenes of local and everyday life.

And: unpublished song, author and composer, interpreter, musical group, best song to the Amazon.