Sukay

History

Sukay, an international touring musical group, is known in the United States, more than any other group, for bringing the music of the Andes for the first time to thousands of cities and concert stages throughout North America. The group’s name came from the ancient language and culture of the Quechua of the central Andes, and it means “to open the earth and make it ready for planting”. For 25 years before the opening of Peña Pachamama in San Francisco in the late '90s, Sukay performed major concerts in Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall, Jack Singer Concert Hall, O.C. Tanner Amphitheatre in Utah, the Herbst Theatre and Masonic Auditorium in San Francisco, Wilder Hall at Oberlin College, Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado, the Lisner Auditorium and Smithsonian Institution’s Baird Auditorium in Washington, D.C., Teatro Campesino, the California Institute of the Arts, the Roy E. Disney Center for the Performing Arts in Albuquerque, the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts in Arizona, Centennial Hall in Tucson, Spivey Hall in Georgia, and the Colisée Pepsi in Quebec City (opening for Peter Gabriel and Genesis). The group also appeared at festivals in Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg and Toronto, and at Pete Seeger’s Clearwater Festival and countless other venues. They toured internationally and recorded many albums. Among the Andean legends joining them were Yuri Ortuño “the Plácido Domingo of Bolivia”, Savia Andina’s renowned wind instrumentalist Alcides Mejia, and Eddy Navia, one of Bolivia’s beloved charangists. Eddy went on to become Sukay’s artistic director and husband of Sukay's co-founder Quentin Howard Navia. In the mid-'70s, Eddy had Eric Clapton status in his native country. The music of his band stayed atop the South America Top 40 charts, and several of their 35 album recordings on CBS and RCA went gold. Sukay was formed by Edmond Badoux from Switzerland and Quentin Howard in Montreal, Quebec in 1975. They traveled to South America for 15 months where they studied Andean music in many small villages in Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. Setting up Sukay's home base in San Francisco, California, they invited two Bolivian musicians, Gonzalo Vargas and Javier Canelas to join them. In 1989, the legendary Bolivian composer Eddy Navia took over as Artistic Director of the group. In 2012 and 2013, he was nominated for the prestigious Latin Grammy Award and is considered to be one of the greatest Bolivian composers and charango virtuosos in the world today. Eddy & Quentin Navia founded the Peña Pachamama in San Francisco,CA, which for the past 18 years has become the gathering place for the great world music and dance.

Discography