Music of the Americas: k'uKu World Premiere by Pauchi Sasaki

Music of the Americas presented the online world premiere of k’uKu, with music by Pauchi Sasaki and video by Juan Carlos Yanaura. Commissioned by Americas Society, k'uKu is a composition for string quintet, percussion, voice, electronics, and video.

Shot during the COVID confinement in cities across the US and in Lima, the source video material is 3D scans made by the musicians with their phones in their homes and studios. These images become figures and environments that are in constant dialogue. Commissioned by Americas Society, k'uKu ('Unripe Fruit' in Quechua) was originally conceived as a site-specific multimedia performance to take place in New York's Central Park, and became a site-specific place for the virtual space created by Sasaki and Yanaura. Performers will include members of the orchestral collective The Knights alongside percussionist Haruka Fujii and Sasaki herself on voice.

The MetLife Foundation Music of the Americas concert series is made possible by the generous support of Presenting Sponsor MetLife Foundation. The Spring-Summer 2021 Music program is also supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts and is made possible, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. Additional support comes from The Amphion Foundation, Inc.