From hip bones to hip tones.

• Author: Holston, Mark
• Position: Music - Viviana Guzman

Although in recent years Viviana Guzman has become one of the most in-demand concert artists in the U.S., it was medical services, not music, that initially brought the renowned Chilean flutist to North America. "I was born with a bilateral hip dislocation," she explains. "The doctors in Chile said that it was the worst case they'd ever encountered and strongly urged my parents to move to the States so I could receive better care. I've consequently had ten major surgeries, and it wasn't until 1999, after my left hip replacement, that I became pain free and limp free for the first time in my life."

Far from setting back her career aspirations, Guzman has found inspiration in the trials of her physical ordeal. The native of Concepcion, Chile's third largest city, located near the Pacific coast about 250 miles south of the capital of Santiago, has even embraced dance as part of her performance routine. Her spirit is buoyed by the fact that she won't have to return to the operating room for at least another four or five years. And she's drawn inspiration from a personality who has become an icon for many women of the Americas, the late Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.

"In many ways, I've always felt very linked to Frida's plight," she states. "The only difference that I see is that I was born broken and have become healed, and she became broken later in life and declined until death. But our lives have run a parallel path, and I've always sympathized with her. There's something to being physically ill that corresponds directly to becoming emotionally fragile. Consequently, I've funneled this pain into my music, my dance, and my poetry. People really seem to respond to it, especially those who are not afraid to face the dark abyss of their shadow selves."

Today, Guzman's acclaim as a solo performer extends beyond the classical music world, where she established her reputation while still a teenager in the universe of global styles influenced by myriad ethnic traditions and jazz. Her repertoire ranges from the tried and true European flute repertoire to the all-encompassing World Music genre. On one recent recording, she extensively explores the Afro-Cuban based compositions of Rebeca Mauleon-Santana. She's also recorded with Badi Assad, the young Brazilian guitarist, who is expanding the stylistic parameters of her land's indigenous music forms. For Guzman, the world offers far too many music treasures to be confined by just one or two well-known...