The Colón Electrónico was a self-described “series for contemporary sonic and visual events” that took place between 2002 and 2006 in the Colón theater in Bogotá. It could be said that it defined contemporary academic and experimental music in the city and country after the turn of the century, providing an important space for Colombian musicians and artists during the first decade of the 21st century. “We all took part in it”, says composer Daniel Leguizamón, referring to a generation of young musicians who were studying at the time or fresh out of university, like himself. Not only was it a new, unique space for contemporary academic music, but it was also meant to welcome artists and musicians from different backgrounds and generations, working in and across different genres and with different media. Improvised, electroacoustic, instrumental, and experimental music, as well as artists closer to IDM, jazz, and rock music, were programmed throughout those five years, in which video, dance and sculpture also contributed to an interdisciplinary and intermedia approach to musicking. “The boundaries between genres and techniques, and between ‘art-music’ and ‘popular music’, are increasingly difficult to define” ("Colón Electrónico", 2004), commented Ana María Romano, one of the concert series’ organizers.

​

The backstory to the Colón Electrónico is an important one that can be read with much more detail in Rodolfo Acosta’s essays, but a short summary should be useful to understand the importance of this yearly event. During the 1990s two important musical promoters, Cecilia Casas and Carlos Barreira, organized crucial events for the contemporary musical community. The former was at the forefront of the biannual  Festival Internacional de Música Contemporánea de Bogotá (International Contemporary Music Festival of Bogotá) that took place between 1989 and 2007, and the latter organized a yearly series of concerts called Jóvenes Compositores Contemporáneos (Young Contemporary Composers), between 1987 and 2000. On a different front, in 1995 Roberto García and Ricardo Arias had organized the first Festival de los Tiempos del Ruido, a music festival that centered around improvised music, electroacoustic music and multidisciplinary/multimedia creation, and included musicians and visual artists, as well as international artists. García and Arias were members of the legendary trio Sol Sonoro which is considered to have been the first musical group in Colombia dedicated to so-called free improvisation, having done so from 1986 and throughout the 1990s (Acosta, 2008). Six years after the first version of the festival, in 2001, García organized the second edition, which according to Acosta had a very similar approach to the first one with the difference of not including more than a few international artists, which he found exciting, presumably as a sign of maturity on behalf of the local community of contemporary and experimental music, rich and strong enough to constitute a successful festival (Acosta, 2008). A year later, in 2002, García would join Andrés Burbano and Ricardo Rozental, and organize the first edition of the Colón Electrónico with the support of the director of the theater at the time, Clarisa Ruiz.

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

The second edition of the series in 2003, continued to be organized by Roberto García and Ricardo Rozental, but this time also included composer Ana María Romano as the organizer of the “decentralized series”, a parallel group of events that looked to take these performances and pieces into different spaces in Bogotá, mostly public libraries. Romano would then become the main organizer of the Colón Electrónico for the 2004 and 2005 editions, saying that “conceived since its inception as a space for getting together, and open to the multiplicity of current expressions, the Colón Electrónico has made room for the coexistence of different aesthetics and generations.” (Various Artists, 2008). Composer Daniel Leguizamón, who was also assistant organizer for the 2004 edition, seems to agree, and considers that “it was a tremendously valuable programme  because it showed us not only  a facet of the past, of those previous generations, but also of our coetaneous peers” (CCMC [XI Jornadas de Música Contemporánea CCMC - 2021], 2020). The Colón Electrónico had one last edition, in 2006 under the organization of Blanca Cecilia Carreño, before being interrupted by the remodeling and refurbishing of the theater, nevertheless, it left a huge impact on the community and helped to group the great variety of activity that was taking place in experimental, electroacoustic, and contemporary music, as well as intermedia and interdisciplinary arts, and shape a stronger musical community in Bogotá.