Categories
Miscellany

Que viva la Virgen! More Holiday Music with a Difference

Recorded in a Durham church in the wee hours of a cold morning in late December last year. This is probably one of the most powerful expressions of a community of faith I have ever seen—thousands of people bundling up the children for a trip to the church at 3 a.m. where, along with the Mariachis, they serenaded the Virgin of Guadalupe and asked for her blessing.

Audio:
Las Mananitas
Song for the Virgin of Guadelupe

Read Sylvia Pfeiffenbeger’s story in the Indy from last year:

By 4 a.m., some 2,000 people have arrived. A young man standing near the shrine decides: It’s time to sing Las Mananitas again, now that more people are here. Everybody sings along now with Fernando’s full lead voice, the warm, wide vibrato of trumpets, the fat plucked bass of the guitarron and the strummed ukelele-like vihuela. As silence after the last verse falls, a bracing cry spontaneously rises: “Que viva la Virgen!”

Photo by Derek Anderson

Photo by Derek Anderson