Talented Singer Yma Sumac Dies at 86

The amazingly talented Peruvian singer Yma Sumac has passed away at the age of 86.

Born in Cajamarca, Peru in 1922, as Zoila Augusta Emperatriz Chavarri del Castillo, she claimed to be a descendant of the Incan emperor Atahualpa, and around this legend she constructed an exotic, mysterious image as an Incan princess, which she cultivated for decades. Her stage name was first Ymma Sumack (Quechua for "pretty flower"), which was later changed to Yma Sumac when she came to the United States and signed her first recording contract with Capitol Records in 1950. Her voice covered 4 1/2 octaves.

Some sources credit her with singing the highest note ever recorded in the female voice, in the track "Chuncho" on one of the many LPs she produced in her heyday during the 1950s.

She is responsible for introducing Peruvian folk music to an American audience and the world music scene in general, and intepreting it for a modern audience in her own entrancing style.



















I am pleased to say my mom introduced me to her when I was a kid. One night when I was sitting in front of the TV, we came to a channel that was airing Secret of the Incas with Yma and Charlton Heston, and I still remember how excited my mom got when Yma Sumac made her appearance. "Ooo! ooo! There's Yma Sumac. Listen to her sing! Isn't she somethin'?"

I giggled at her campy kookiness but, like my mother, I was entranced by her voice, which she could fashion into a warbling nightingale with one note and into a growling jungle cat the next. I'd never heard anyone do anything like that with their voice before, and have never heard anything like it since.

Que descanse en paz.