Music and traditions in Ecuador

Students will understand that Ecuador is part of a megadiverse and multicultural world, contributing to the construction and care of a more just and equitable human society.

Alomía Robles was influenced by indigenous movements during the 20th century to compose a zarzuela, which is a Spanish operetta, written to be played by an orchestra that he called El Cóndor Pasa. In 1933, he sold the rights to El Cóndor Pasa to the Edward B. Marks Music Corporation. In the 1960s, Andean bands became very popular in Europe. One of these groups was called Los Incas. They performed their own version of El Cóndor Pasa with Andean instruments. Paul Simon, from the band Simon & Garfunkel, saw them perform in Paris and he learned the melody and added his own lyrics to it. He named the new version If I Could and it became the most popular song across Europe; especially in countries like Spain, Austria, and the Netherlands. However, Paul Simon didn’t know that the copyrights to the song didn’t belong to the group Los Incas. The son of Alomía Robles sued Paul Simon and, after some time, the authorship of the composer was reestablished. One hundred years after it was written, El Cóndor Pasa is now free for the public to use.