The undersecretary of Education and Culture, Ana Ribeiro, highlighted this Thursday the 22nd the “academic leap” that the Lauro Ayestarán National Music Documentation Center, which until now was dispersed in different locations, will achieve with its unification in a new physical space, located in the Blue Room of the National Library. The works required an investment of 490,000 pesos.
Ribeiro participated in the opening of the new headquarters, which is part of the country’s main library. The reform work, in which 490,000 pesos were invested, began at the end of 2020 and the move was completed in April of this year.
The chief was accompanied by the general director of the portfolio, Pablo Landoni; the director of the General Archive of the Nation, Alberto Umpiérrez; his peer from the Heritage Commission, William Rey; that of the National Library, Valentín Trujillo; the executive secretary of the aforementioned center, Julio Frade, and relatives of the head of that institution.
Lauro Ayestarán (1913-1966) “taught the country that the musicological study that requires a score by Eduardo Fabini is as valuable as a little Brazilian tune that he knows how to play by cultural tradition on his guitar, on the border, a man with calloused hands by rural work”, said Ribeiro.
The musicologist taught us that field work should be carried out in the towns and in every corner of the country to preserve the tonalities and the different cultural contributions. “That sound archive is valuable for future generations,” he considered.
Meanwhile, Trujillo said that the fact that the aforementioned center is integrated into the National Library “enriches the enormous treasures it possesses.” As a State policy, it is important that this administration promote a project of more than two decades, which dates back to the decision of the former Minister of Education and Culture Antonio Mercader to acquire the archive of Lauro Ayestarán. Then their development and preservation continued, he revealed.
Frade then stated that the new premises provide “space and academic quality” and thanked Ribeiro for carrying out the initiative. He indicated that Ayestarán compiled, throughout his life, fundamental information for the history of Uruguayan music. He added that it is made up of extremely valuable files, a large number of thematic folders, data, photographs, books and field and study recordings in different sound formats.
He also mentioned that the tasks of the center include collecting the memory of the music of Uruguay. In addition to the tasks of conservation, restoration and access to materials, activities aimed at generating knowledge, international colloquiums, study days, meetings and seminars, and dissemination of documents to specialized and non-specialized audiences are added.
