Jemmy Button and Orquesta Valdivia

Her age and her name were not hers, they were what Robert Fitz Roy gave her when he took everything else from her. James Button, 14 years old, were the labels that the English captain imposed on a Yagan boy whom he kidnapped from the southern tip of the country to take to Europe. Three years later, in 1833, he arrived back in Tierra del Fuego, where decades later he was implicated in a massacre of missionaries.

In 2010, the Tryo Teatro Banda company premiered Jemmy Button, a work with which it celebrated 10 years of work, reviewing history in a minstrel way. The production, written by Ximena Carrera and directed by Sebastián Vila, was a success, with more than 200 performances in Chile, Argentina and England.

The Valdivia Chamber Orchestra was born the same year as the work, when in 2010 it was founded under the wing of the Austral University. Five years later the paths of company and orchestra crossed.

At the end of last year, the orchestral version of Jemmy Button premiered in Valdivia, with composition and orchestral direction by Jorge Aliaga. Now the production premieres in Santiago, with three minstrel actors, 10 classical musicians and an orchestral director on stage.