PEMBERVILLE – Andes Manta will bring the traditional sounds of the Andes to the Pemberville Opera House
with a free concert Saturday at 7:30 p.m.
The ensemble features four brothers from the Ecuadorian Andes who have been playing traditional music
since their childhood. The Pemberville show is part if an encore tour of Ohio for the quartet. They also
performed here last year.
Andes Manta will play for students at Elmwood and Eastwood schools on Thursday and Friday and present
pan pipe workshop for children at Pemberville Public Library Saturday 10:30 a.m. Call (419) 287-4012 to
reserve space.
Andes Manta traces its roots to the decision of Teresa and Luis Lopez to move to the city of Quito in the
remote Ecuadorian Andes in 1960. They raised their family of seven children in the traditional way,
celebrating the cycles of life with the music and dance of their ancestors.
Like most Ecuadorian children the boys, Fernando, Luis, Bolivar and Jorge made flutes and panpipes of
native bamboo, and learned to play from older musicians. When Fernando Lopez was eight years old, he
found an abandoned guitar in a field. Although it had only three strings, he worked out melodies,
played and learned. A relative had the guitar repaired. A music teacher noticed his talent and sent
him to the Quito Conservatory to study classical guitar.
But it was the music of the Pueblo, the folk tradition of the Andes that drew Fernando and his brothers.
At an early age, the Lopez brothers gained a reputation throughout the music circles of Quito as a
formidable talent in the folk music world.
In 1986 while still in their early 20s, Fernando Lopez and his brother Luis were invited to present a
series of concerts at Simon’s Rock of Bard College in western Massachusetts. Since that time they have
performed on major stages throughout North America, appearing in 48 states in the U.S.
Andes Manta is now based in the Hudson Valley of New York. The group has toured across North America
including performances at Carnegie Hall, the National Cathedral and Lincoln Center.
