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Lyrical find its way into Nicaragua

Stephany Cuadra | Jul 13, 2016

Master Concert from the First Puccini Festival in Latin America | Photographer: Jorge Serrano

Learn about the music that can make you vibrate and transmit emotions from youth to adults.

There is a group of passionate performers who see and feel the music from a different perspective from many people, this kind of classical music is known as lyrical singing, in this article we'll talk about it.

15 years ago the movement started with Grupo Lírico de Nicaragua (Lyrical Group in English), Formed by Elisa Picado, Laureano Ortega, Mario Rocha, who have represented Nicaragua in events outside the country. They were motivated and were by the hand of his predecessors Alberto San Jose and Master Ramon Rodriguez, who is the director of the National Theatre and the Camerata Bach.

The lyrical singing is a different technique from all others popular genres (pop, hip-hop, reggaeton, salsa, music band) which are sung from the chest, for its particular feature to learn to control breathing as they fill the lungs with much air as possible, to achieve better voice impost and resonance in singing, by setting the voice on the vocal cords to emit the sound to the fullest without hesitation.

These are not traditional songs, but plays and interpretations. Rocha explains that maximum plays are operas. These plays are divided into acts, acts can be parliaments singing, choruses (which are characters in the play) and lead singers (protagonists of the play), who have so-called "areas" where they can stand "alone", or in duets, trios , quartets, depending on the play, always as soloists.

Singing Development

Picado sees the opera singing has grown satisfactorily. Nicaragua used to be last in Central America. Now competes with Guatemala and Costa Rica, who are located in the highest positions of lyrical singing.

As it was very little known, the Lyrical Group began by creating a new audience, making it accessible and popular. In this way they have made young people interested in the art.

Such is the case of Allisson Maltez, a girl that since she was nine years old started on singing chest. However, a year ago chose to learn from this technical singing and, fascinated by it, she says it is the only option to transmit emotions and feelings. In addition, it also has helped her to interpret and improve popular songs.

Training Academies

Picado says is required of an academy to be interpreted, because of the techniques to learn to develop the diaphragm and be able to identify the voice chord of each student, because everyone is born with a different degree of voice.

One of these schools is the Fundación Incanto - Nicaraguan Singing Institute, which among the help of the Lyrical Group, works in promoting this type of genre in two ways:

One is the creation of events, as they had in February at the Hotel Granada, where more than 1,000 people attended and next one that will be developed this August the 2nd, entitled "An Evening of Zarzuela". The second one is training and promoting young, with an introductory year of singing, composed of 30 talents today, to educate them in music reading, repertoire, body language and workshops, among with masters of Lyrical Theater of Havana and Pucciniano from Italy.