Who consists of the Inti-Illimani group and where does its name come from?

The name of the Inti-Illimani group is formatted as follows; They performed many concerts without a name for a long time and composed many songs that had a wide audience. During their Latin American tour, Bolivian guitarist Eulogio Dávila wanted the band's name to be Inti-İllimani, inspired by the name of a mountain in Bolivia on Bolivia's Independence Day. “Inti” means sun in the “Ayamara” dialect. “Illimani” is a mountain range close to La Paz and Bolivia. In this form, it is the sun of the Inti-Illimani mountains.

Inti-Illimani has had a huge impact almost everywhere in the world. The band, which best preserves the roots of traditional Latin American music, uses over thirty wind, string, and percussion instruments. The harmony, gait, arrangements, and harmonic structure of these instruments have become one of the greatest treasures of the human soul. Since they are based on social elements as an understanding of music, the compositions created live with history and become a part of the history of society.

Inti-Illimani are an instrumental and vocal Latin American folk music ensemble from Chile. The band was formed in 1967 by a group of university students and it acquired widespread popularity in Chile for their song Venceremos (We shall win!), which became the anthem of the Popular Unity government of Salvador Allende. When the 1973 Chilean coup d'état took place, they were on tour in Europe and were unable to return to their country where their music was proscribed by the ruling military junta of Augusto Pinochet. In Europe their music took on a multifarious character, incorporating elements of European baroque and other traditional music forms to their Latin American rhythms, creating a fusion of modern world music. Their name means 'Sun of the Golden Eagle' in Aymara.

The group was founded in 1966 by Horacio Duran and his friends, a chemical engineering major who came to Santiago Technical University to become an engineer. Although the areas they studied were different, the spirit of the lands they lived in, the common culture of Chile, Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina, and the heritage of their ancestors brought them together in music as a social side, taking them from their roots. This meeting naturally established a deep bond with the society over time and gave life to the "Nueva Canción*" period in Latin America by adapting Inca, Mayan, and Latin melodies in contemporary forms. Especially at this point, they have taken on Victor Jara's legacy.

Horacio Duran, who earned his living by selling pastries and wine while he was at university, was playing at the underground casino called "La China" on Saturday nights. Encouraged by the interest shown by the students, they made their first tour in Argentina in 1968 with the money they received from a friend's father. They attract great attention with their song "Si somo Americanos". After this tour, the University administration closed the tavern used by the band at that time. Horacio Duran, when talking about those periods in the future, will say, "Those periods were the beginning of our music, our university life and what we experienced at university were not very important for us." In the sharpening social transformation in 1970, the group took on the mission of putting the party program into music by actively participating in the presidential election campaign of Chilean leader Salvador Allende. “Venceremos”, one of the anthems of the 68 generations, was composed for this purpose at that time.

At the time of the military coup carried out by Pinochet on September 11, 1973, they were performing to four hundred thousand people in Italy, the first leg of their European tour. Inti-Illimani, who went on a European tour as the cultural ambassador of the Allende government and could not return to his country for 15 years after the coup, returned to his country on September 18, 1988. Tens of thousands of people who cursed Pinochet and the bloody coup attended the welcome, singing the song of victory, "Venceremos", in the manner of a rally. This process also became a part of musical change and continuity for Inti-Illimani. For change, they were introduced to the music and cultures of many countries and incorporated it, and for continuity, if they had been in their country during the coup, they, too, would have had their share of the coup, like other artists and groups in Chile. Describing this event, Inti-İllimani said: “Our exile also enabled us to continue singing. "We were lucky in that sense, so it was a kind of turning point," he says. During their time abroad, they received a British Academy award in 1982.

Over the course of time, they worked with Peter Gabriel, Bruce Springsteen, Mercedes Sosa, Sting, and Wynton Marsalis at Amnesty International, and with Peter Gabriel, Paco Peña, John Williams, Emma Thompson, Karen Matheson, Maria Farantouri and Salsa Celtica at the Victor Jara Foundation. . In the interviews conducted with the group, they stated that they do not have a relationship with a political party, but that their lives are intertwined with politics, that the group sometimes even goes further than propaganda, that they reflect the feelings and thoughts of the society due to their strong social ties, and ultimately they strive for a better world.

In 1980, they released the album "En Directo Italia" as a tribute to Italy, which hosted them for fifteen years. The years 1989-1998 were the years when the band experienced incredible rapid musical growth. In 1997 and 1998, some of the band members changed and the lineup; It continued as Horacio Duran, Jorge Culon, Marelo Coulon, Manuel Merino, and Juan Flores. In 2000, Inti-İllimani decided to re-release his old recordings. These include “The Best of Inti-Illimani”, “Inti-Illimani Performs Victor Jara”, covering the years 1973-1987, and “Inti-Illimani: Antologia en Vivo”, consisting of concert recordings. In 2002, Inti-Illimani added three new young musicians (Efren Viera, Daniel Cantillana, and Cristian Gonzalez). In November of the same year, they released the album "Lugares Comunes" with their new band members. In 2004, they composed the music for the movie "The Devil's Miner", which tells the life of two brothers (Basilio and Bernardino Vargas) who work in a mine at the ages of twelve and fourteen. In this work, the film and Inti-Illimani won four international awards. In 2005, they composed the music for the recently completed film "My Little World".

Jorge Coulon (Guitar, Tiple, Rondador, Zampona, Dulcimer, Harp, Vocals)

Marcelo Coulon (Guitar, Quena, Piccolo, Bass, Vocals)

Daniel Cantillana (Violin, Bass, Zampona, Viola, Mandolin, Vocals)

Juan Flores (Bass, Cajon, Cuatro, Charango, Quena, Guitar, Mandolin, Sikus, Vocals)

Cesar Jara (Guitar, Tiple, Bass, Charango, Vocals)

Christian Gonzalez (Lute, Piccolo, Quena, Sikus, Cajon, Bass, Vocals)

Efren Manuel Viera (Congas, Bongo, Cajon, Timbales and Latin percussion, Clarinet, Saxophone, Vocals)

* Nueva Canción: A movement initiated by Violeta Parra in the 1960s in Chile, which has been exposed to many social and political influences as a geographical region, and continued by Victor Jara, on the research and preservation of the roots of Chilean music.