Miguel Sulca

Miguel Sulca, one of the top Andean musicians in Miami, founded the instrumental folk music ensemble Alma Andina (“Andean Soul”) with his brother Abel, former president of the Ayacucho Club of Miami. The brothers are from a renowned family ensemble from Ayacucho, an Andean city and region known for its music. Miguel Sulca studied music at Ayacucho’s School of Music and plays traditional string, wind, and percussion instruments.

Alma Andina comprises approximately ten musicians, including a couple of Bolivians. Musicians come and go, according to their availability. The ensemble features traditional Amerindian instruments of the flute family (which abound in the Andes): the ubiquitous quena (notched flute) and the zampoña (panpipes). Other instruments are the fiddle, folk harp, guitar, mandolin, saxophone, accordion, and the bass drum. The current vogue for Afro-Peruvian coastal music has added the cajón (wooden box drum) to the ensemble.

Perhaps the highlight of Alma Andina’s performance schedule is Miami’s Peruvian Independence Day festival, organized each July by Martha del Villar and the MADELMA Foundation. The festival features a variety of music and dance from the Andes, particularly that of the Quechua, the largest Amerindian linguistic and cultural group of the Andes. Coastal Peruvian music is also performed at the festival, as is Latin rock and “technocumbia”—the electrified Colombian cumbia popular in the Peruvian Andes.

Miguel Sulca (second from left) and Alma Andina at the Peruvian Independence Day celebration.
Photograph by Martha Ellen Davis.