“The Journey of Strings”: Latin Grammy Winner Berta Rojas’s Immersive Multimedia Exploration of the Guitar’s Rich History in Latin America

The fulfilment of a dream for Latin Grammy-winning classical guitarist Berta Rojas, “The Journey of Strings” weaves a fascinating tale of musical transformation. Presented across various formats—vinyl, streaming, videos, and book with innovative augmented reality—it traces the intriguing story of how the guitars and vihuelas brought to Latin America by the conquistadors influenced the continent’s cultures and traditions and in turn was itself transformed, giving rise to unique instruments that voice the soul of the region’s people and their identities. Slated for release on October 31, the album marks the first time anyone has brought together the guitar and the incredibly rich array of Latin America’s stringed instruments for a vibrant collection of musical conversations.

A Latin Grammy winner in 2022 and a four-time Latin Grammy nominee, Berta Rojas is one of the few women in the top echelon of classical guitar, renowned for her virtuosity and electrifying performances. She was recently appointed to the Latin Grammy Board of Directors, a reflection of her deep commitment to championing Latin music and culture.

For this ambitious project, more than two years in the making, Rojas performed with over 17 guest artists, traveling more than 8,000 miles to 10_ countries and working closely with researchers and musicologists. Each of the 11 tracks, all accompanied by a performance video, is a collaborative dialog between the guitar and these expressive string instruments, from the sonorous bass of the giant 25-string Chilean guitarrón to the twang of the more mandolin-like Puerto Rican cuatro.

Fans of the series “The Last of Us” —HBO’s cultural phenomenon with 32 million viewers per episode—might already be familiar with the ronroco. This Andean variant, once made from the back of an armadillo, is responsible for the haunting sound of the TV show’s theme composed by Gustavo Santaolalla, the winner of 2 Oscars, 17 Latin Grammys and 2 Grammys.  On the album’s lead single, Rojas plays a duet with Santaolalla on a specially arranged version of the song for guitar and ronroco.

The performance videos—on “The Journey of Strings” website, YouTube and streaming platforms—include notes that reveal the stories of the instruments, their impact on local culture and behind-the-recordings interviews. Accompanying the vinyl album available on Amazon will be a large-format book written by Argentine music critic Santiago Giordano intertwining narratives, photographs of the instruments, and portraits of the artists. Within its pages, augmented reality will allow readers not only to visualize the instruments in three dimensions using a QR code but also hear what they sound like by strumming a finger across the virtual strings.

While string instruments can be traced as far back as 3200 BC, this journey begins with the 15^th century arrival in Latin America of the double-stringed, flat-backed Spanish vihuela. “Smaller than today’s guitar, the vihuela provides the foundational DNA for so many of the instruments we're spotlighting in the album,” says the Paraguayan-born Rojas. “They may be in their own niche, but they are still very much present in the culture and the traditions of Latin America.”

“Their evolution reflects the interplay of the different inhabitants of the Americas at the time, the Spaniards and Portuguese, the Indigenous peoples and enslaved Africans forcibly transported to bolster labor in the colonies,” she explains. “Interestingly, we see many instruments developing in those areas where Jesuit missions were established to interact with and convert local populations. From these contacts arise the stories of great joy—and great sadness—hidden inside these instruments.”

The album’s first track “La Huella del Códice,” recorded in Italy, brings together the sounds of the vihuela, the Baroque guitar (both played by Evangelina Mascardi), and Rojas’s antique 12-string guitar crafted in Havana in 1820. The work draws from the tablatures or musical notations of four pieces from the Saldivar Codex discovered in 1948 at an antiques shop in Mexico and written in the 18^th century by Spanish composer Santiago de Murcia. “In this material we hear the unmistakable dance rhythms so typical of Latin America, like the samba and the chacarera, within pieces composed in 1738 by someone who never traveled to the New World,” Rojas says. “It was his music that sailed across the Atlantic.”

In Colombia, Rojas introduces us to a family of stringed instruments with Andean origins—the bandola llanera and the tiple—and performs with a family of instrumentalists, the Saboya Brothers. “Bambuco Pa' Billy” is a new composition by Daniel Saboya based on a traditional form that blends Spanish melodies with indigenous and African rhythms.

Rojas also commissioned gifted composer and guitarist Elodie Bouny to write a three-movement work for chamber orchestra and guitar, resulting in a series of dialogs highlighting the charango, the Venezuelan cuatro, and the Brazilian mandolin. The pieces are a musical travelogue that takes us to the mountains of the Andes, the vast grassland plains of Venezuela and Colombia and the seaside of Brazil.

“From the moment I suggested this to my producers Sebastian Henríquez and Popi Spatocco, doors opened and everything was aligned,” Rojas says. “We hope this work reflects and enhances the musical richness of our people and culture. Our continent is a dream turned into a path and on that path, we want to leave a footprint.”