Sometimes our work may lead to aspects of Oaxaca history and culture which are only indirectly related to the organs, but may be important enough to highlight during our festivals. The second theme of this year’s festival concerns the contents of two wooden trunks discovered in the choir loft of the San Bartolo church during a visit by the IOHIO in 2001 to register the organ. The trunks were full of religious books and manuscripts dating from the early 18th century, as well as religious and popular band music from the 19th and early 20th century. 

The oldest books were from the Dominican evangelizing center in Santo Domingo Nejapa, located in southeastern Oaxaca, and one of them was backed with three pieces of deerskin from a pre-hispanic codex, the first discovered in this area of Mexico. The music from the manuscripts is largely vocal—Gregorian chant and polyphony, with some verses in Zapotec—and provides a rare glimpse into a period of Dominican evangelizing in Oaxaca when the composition and transmission of sacred music was of the highest priority. These documents were brought to San Bartolomé Yautepeque, as the town was known in colonial times, by the musician, Domingo Flores, native of San Bartolo, and there they remained for nearly 300 years.

In 2007, the authorities of San Bartolo Yautepec permitted the IOHIO and the Francisco de Burgoa Library to disseminate the information through conferences and concerts during the Seventh IOHIO Festival and the original documents to be brought to Oaxaca for restoration and analysis. Thanks to their support of our project, festival participants had the opportunity to hear this unknown music in two concerts after centuries of silence.