The Marandú Choir was founded on July 28, 1985 in Asunción, Paraguay. Although we were the product of a crisis in another choral group, we received from the beginning the total support of the Salesian Congregation, and specially, of the P. Antonio Rubio SDB and P. Pedro Viedma SDB. We worked hard and with much enthusiasm, and we were very soon were able to present our first concert.

30 young men and women and I as choir director were part of the starting team. The number of members oscilated seasonally between 15 and 60. I directed the choir until 1993. Before I left for Germany, I proposed a succesor who was unanimously accepted by the choir members: Miguel Angel Arámbulo.


An example of our repertoire

Ave María - Tomás L. de Victoria
Say love - John Dowland
Come away sweet love - Thomas Greaves
Lasciate mi morire - Claudio Monteverdi
Cantate Domino - Heinrich Schütz
Sicut locutus est - Johann S. Bach
Ave verum Corpus - Wofgang A. Mozart
Salve Regina - Franz Danzi
Locus iste - Anton Bruckner
Un cygne - Paul Hindemith
Ave Maria Guaraní - Ennio Morricone
Aleluia - Ronaldo Miranda

Ilusión de amor - Delfor Boggino
Guaigui jepe'e - Ramón Silva/Marcos Prado
Mandu'arã - Rudy Torga/Carlos Noguera
Yvága purahéi - Mito Sequera
En algún lugar - Antonio Medina Boselli
Verano porteño - Astor Piazzola
Adión nonino - Astor Piazzola
Porqué cantamos - Mario Benedetti/Antonio Favero
Saia de babado - Arr. Antonio Vaz
Berimbau - Baden Powell/Vinicius de Moraes
Deep river - negro spiritual
Joshua fit de battle ob Jericho - negro spiritual


List of members of the Marandú Choir

The number of members of the Marandú Choir at a particular time rarely exceeded 40 to 45. The following is an almost complete list of all members in the period of time from 1985 through 1993.


Some audiovisual samples from concerts

These video excerpts are intented to solely serve as a historic documentation. They were not profesionally recorded, the video quality is poor, the compression to make them internet-feasible has reduced it more, although I tried to preserve sound quality as much as possible.

Recordings were made with a home video camera. Format conversion from the digital version were made for windows media player.

Locus iste - Anton Bruckner
          00:02:00 - 1.5 MB

Berimbau - Baden Powell/Vinicius de Moraes
          00:02:04 - 1.6 MB

Guaigui jepe'e - Ramón Silva/Marcos Prado
          00:02:04 - 1.6 MB

Yo no sé porqué - Delfor Boggino
          00:03:13 - 2.2 MB

Balada para un viejo muerto - Palombo/Sánchez
          00:02:40 - 2 MB

Joshua fit de battle ob Jericho - negro spiritual
          00:02:01 - 1.5 MB

Porque ha salido el sol - Pablo Neruda/Víctor Heredia
          00:03:09 - 2.4 MB


Opinions in the newspapers

          Texts are available only in the original spanish version.

Diario Hoy, 3 de octubre de 1987, pág. 38 Arte y Espectáculos:
El Coro Marandú enaltece la historia de la música coral

Diario Ultima Hora, 22 de diciembre de 1988, pág. 32 Espectáculos y Culturales: Alegría del canto coral

Diario Hoy, 10 de julio de 1989, pág. 34 Arte y Espectáculos:
Marandú y más

Diario Ultima Hora, 22 de julio de 1985, pág. 15 Opinión:
The stone of the scandal. You can read here the reason for the crisis that resulted in the creation of the Marandú Choir.
Cartas al director - Torturas