Text by Stan Alcorn
At an outdoor concert in Cali, Colombia, Esteban Valdivia is selecting his next instrument from what looks like a museum display. There’s an Incan deer skull, a Carchi syrinx, a flute made from the hollow quills of a condor. In all there are three dozen replicas of artifacts from ancient American civilizations that Valdivia, a classically trained flautist with a master’s degree in history and anthropology, has spent more than two decades mastering. But the object he picks up is one that he doesn’t play at all, strictly speaking: It is an instrument that plays itself.
“This is one of the most incredible objects,” Valdivia says, holding up a two-chambered clay bottle decorated with a bird perched on a tiny house. It’s a replica of an artifact from the Chorrera culture on the Ecuadorean coast, circa 1500 BCE. “It’s a sound machine,” he says. “You activate it, and the sound it makes is the same as 3,000 or 4,000 years ago.”
Continue reading: https://www.audubon.org/magazine/meet-metalhead-turned-anthropologist-who-plays-ancient-instruments-inspired-birds
