El Tuyero Ilustrado

A fiery rendition of Venezuela’s grief.

Together, singer and percussionist Rafa Pino and cuatro player Edward Ramírez have for some time formed El Tuyero Ilustrado. Because of dire circumstances in their home country Venezuela, the duo currently operates from neighboring Colombia.

Pino vents about the suffering inflicted on his fellow countrymen in sharp words and a fierce voice, set to the sounds of the joropo tuyero, a genre that originated in the Venezuelan countryside, but later became massively popular in Caracas. His ferocity is trumped only by Ramirez’s fiery play on Venezuela’s national instrument, the cuatro. He proved he belonged to the absolute top tier of cuatro players years ago, when he captivated European festival audiences as a member of C4-Trio.

In the duo’s unique version of the joropo tuyero, the role traditionally played by the harp is instead filled by the cuatro, it’s nylon strings replaced by steel to make it sound even sharper and more piercing than usual. Meanwhile Pino has stuck to the old instrumentation, limiting himself to traditional maracas.

Formation

Edward Ramirez – cuato
Rafa Pino – vocals, maracas