Julio Zelaya

Julio Zelaya L., composer, producer, guitarist, and arranger. Music studies in Canada and the United States, graduated from Berklee College of Music, Boston, MA/85. My music is the product of a constant search for musical identity. The rhythms, instrumentations, and traditions of the Garífuna people have been a source of creative inspiration in many of my compositions. The Garífuna people are an Afro-Honduran culture. They came to the North coast of Honduras in 1797 from the island of San Vicente in the Caribbean, which they call Yurumen in a very nostalgic way, like a magical place, a lost paradise. My work is a music story about these people, told in a universal language. Their rhythms and instrumentations have been mixed with harmonic and melodic elements from other styles of music that have been an influence in my life, especially samba, bossa, salsa, pop, and jazz. For the Garífuna people, their music and rhythms are a very important part of their daily life; the rhythms are present in every celebration of life or death according to the Garífuna tradition. The Garífuna rhythms are a very important contribution to the music of the world and should be the subject of study for every serious musician and music lover. As with many other cultures in the world, the Garífuna people live under the constant menace of extinction. The globalization of the present world has a tendency to put us all in some kind of uniformed mind. The protection of the living cultures of the world is a necessity as a source of creativity and cultural diversity. Besides its artistic value, this work, as many others in the world, is oriented towards the protection, diffusion, and preservation of these cultures as a patrimony of the world.