Folk Music of Mexico - Henrietta Yurchenco - 1944 - 1965 - 1966
Henrietta Yurchenco, Pioneer Folklorist. Henrietta Yurchenco (1916-2007) Henrietta Yurchenco, whose quest to save living music from the past took her from the mountains of Guatemala and southern Mexico to a New York City radio station to the Jewish community of Morocco. Like a linguist nailing down a dying language, Ms. Yurchenco, an ethnomusicologist, recorded music from long ago that faced an unclear tomorrow. In an interview, Pete Seeger said she “went to places people didn’t believe she would be able to find.” Among her thousands of recordings are ritual songs from North, South and Central American Indians, including peyote chants, and music celebrating everything from love to agriculture, found from Eastern Europe to the Caribbean to Appalachia to Spain. Ethnomusicologists study music in varying ethnic contexts. Ms. Yurchenco began by tracking down 14 all-but-unknown Mexican and Guatemalan tribes, reaching them with little but a mule and 300 pounds of recording equi