When he lived in New York, Andre would walk through Times Square and look at the huge screens imagining that one day his music would be there too. Years later, that dream came true, but the path that led her to that moment was far from easy. Trained at The Juilliard School, the Peruvian artist left opera behind to find her own voice in the fusion of her Peruvian roots, her family heritage and the sounds that marked her life. With Sagrado Corazón, he opened a new artistic stage that today takes on a historical dimension with “La Puñalá”, the first song in Quechua nominated for the Latin Grammy.
Behind that dream fulfilled there are 15 years of effort, many rejections and a decision that marked a before and after in his career: return to Peru to reconnect with his roots and discover what he wanted to express through his music. Today, the nomination of “La Puñalá” to the Latin Grammy not only recognizes her talent, but also opens a door for Quechua and other expressions of Latin American culture to reach new audiences.
What went through your mind when you saw your music on the screens in Times Square and how did you manage to transform your personal experiences into songs that connect with other people? Learn the story behind the dream that Andre made come true and the path he still wants to take with his music.
For years, opera was the center of your professional life. You trained at The Juilliard School and built a career in classical music. At what point did you feel that that path was no longer enough to express everything you wanted to say as an artist?
This idea had been brewing for several years. The music I was exposed to in the United States, especially in New York, fueled my desire to fuse sounds. When I arrived in the city, I didn’t know what to expect: I was far from home, from my language and from my comfort zone. All I wanted was to absorb everything around me.
In 2019 I decided to move from opera to pop because I wanted to experiment with ideas that were already on my mind and explore my creativity in another space. I wanted to break some rules and dare to try things that I didn’t know if I could develop within classical music. That’s why I decided to take that path from Peru.
Your album Sagrado Corazón brings together three dimensions of your identity: your Peruvian roots, your classical training and the artist you want to become. What was it like to reconcile those parts of yourself and turn them into your own musical language?
I was very clear about the starting point and the structure of my first album. I wanted it to be a letter of introduction to who Andrea was: the artist who left behind her time as Andrea Cisneros in the world of classical music to simply become Andre. My goal was to unite these three pillars without any of them competing with the others.
The process had many ups and downs and taught me so much as an artist and as a woman, especially within an industry where I was also learning to navigate as an independent artist. The biggest challenge was leaving my comfort zone again and daring to do something different, without losing sight of what I wanted to express.
“La Puñalá” was born from a betrayal of trust and ended up taking shape in just one hour. What happened for such a painful experience to be transformed into a song?
Unlike my previous album, I did not sit down with my partner and co-writer, Nuria, with the intention of writing a song. We met to have coffee and talk about life. We have a very special musical connection; I consider her a musical sister, although we come from different places. In my previous album I had told a love story from a more theatrical and cinematic perspective, but this time I wanted to talk about something that had happened to me.
The song emerged spontaneously, with lyrics and melody, in just one hour. I wanted to talk about a human experience, beyond love or lack of love, and allow whoever heard it to identify and think: “It happened to me too.” Disappointment and betrayal are experiences that, unfortunately, are a part of life. I decided to transform what I felt into music, share it and let other people make the song their own.
When a personal wound becomes music, it also stops belonging solely to you. What did you feel when you heard the finished song and realized that that experience could connect with other people’s experiences?
The first thing was to feel that I had overcome a musical challenge, because achieving the sound I was looking for with the instruments I wanted to use was not easy. When I try a song, I usually share it with my best friend, my sisters and my mom, but I don’t ask them if they like it, but rather what they feel when listening to it. My dad taught me to listen to music that way, with songs by Celia Cruz, Benny Moré and other great artists. For me, it’s not enough for a song to have an attractive rhythm: I also want its lyrics to reach people.
My best friend related to the story and after the release I received a very positive response. At BlizzCon, a fan came up excited and told me that “La Puñalá” had accompanied her after her boyfriend betrayed her and lied to her. He told me that the song expressed what he felt while he was going through that stage. That meeting reminded me why I chose to dedicate myself to music: there is no more beautiful reward than knowing that someone genuinely connects with what you do and finds in your songs a way to express their own emotions.
“La Puñalá” brings together the Afro-Peruvian cajon, the landau, the flamenco guitar and the legüero bombo, and incorporates Quechua as an essential part of its identity. How did this fusion of sounds and languages come about, and what does it mean to you to bring Peruvian culture to new audiences?
I wanted to combine a Peruvian folk instrument with another Latin American one. I chose the Afro-Peruvian cajon because I grew up in Lima surrounded by Creole music and it is part of my family’s musical memories. I also wanted to incorporate percussion that would dialogue with it and I thought of the bass drum legüero, traditional from Argentine folklore. Although both instruments share bass and treble, they have different rhythms and come from different regions. The challenge was to find a way to unite them without losing the essence of each one. After several days experimenting with rhythmic patterns with my producer, we also incorporated the flamenco guitar, which represents my Spanish heritage. My father is from Huancavelica and Áncash, while my mother has roots on the northern coast of Peru and Andalusia.
Quechua emerged as another family connection: the guitar represents the link with my mother and Quechua, with my father, whose family spoke the language, although he did not transmit that oral tradition to me. That’s why I work with my Quechua teacher, Carmen Cazorla, a native speaker from the Quechua Chanca community of Ayacucho, to make sure the language is incorporated with respect and cultural coherence. She reviewed the lyrics and helped me correct them. For me, every instrument and every element of a song must have a reason for being. That attention to detail was also present in Sacred Heart and will continue to be part of my next project.
The nomination of “La Puñalá” marks a milestone for being the first song in Quechua nominated for the Latin Grammys. What does it mean to open that space for an indigenous language in a music industry of international scope? Do you feel a special responsibility for what this nomination may mean for other artists and speakers?
I definitely feel a great responsibility since I received the nomination. It is an important precedent that shows that we can create music in our native languages and bring it to new platforms and audiences. For many years there were prejudices around Quechua that led many people to stop using it, despite the fact that millions of people speak it in Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Ecuador and other places. If Quechua can get here, so can other native languages, such as Mapuche and the indigenous languages of the Amazon.
I am proud that this recognition can motivate independent artists who create music in indigenous languages and those who work with Latin American folklore. It can also help make visible the great artists we have in Peru and other countries. I feel that by now having this attention, I can share the work of other musicians and open space for them. I want to bring this recognition to my communities in Peru and Spain and collaborate with more independent artists who are exploring their cultural traditions.
Your music has reached Times Square and received international media attention. How do you experience the contrast between that global recognition and the intimate search that gave rise to Sacred Heart?
I think a lot about all the path I have traveled. Sometimes people tell me I’ve been lucky, but I think it’s about preparation and opportunity. I have been in this industry for 15 years, many of them as a student, knocking on doors that didn’t always open. Now, upon receiving this recognition, I look back and tell myself that I did well not to give up after so many rejections. A teacher told me that this is the race of 99 nos and one yes, but that yes can change everything.
I don’t feel like my success came overnight. I come from a family with limited resources and I have worked very hard, with sacrifices and a lot of time away from home. I remember, when I lived in New York, going to Times Square to look at the screens and imagine that one day I would be there. Today I am happy to see that that effort is beginning to bear fruit, but I feel that I still have a lot to do and prove, both for my music and for the culture of my two countries, which are also two parts of me.
You left Peru to pursue an artistic dream and, years later, you found a new voice by reconnecting with your culture. What did you have to leave behind to discover that a part of what you were looking for had always been where you came from?
Returning home allowed me to rediscover myself in many aspects and create my album from a much more sincere place. Although I left Peru very young to pursue a dream, I knew that I needed to return to the origin to discover what I wanted to express through my music.
Returning does not mean taking two steps back, but doing so with another vision, with more maturity and a different perspective on life, family and work. Coming back helped me understand what I wanted to do with my music. I not only returned to create an album, but also to reconnect with my home. That was exactly what I needed to create what is playing today.
