Alonso del Río

Alonso del Río is a Peruvian singer-songwriter who was born in Lima in 1962. His parents wanted him to become a lawyer, as each of them had done; instead, at age 17, he abandoned his studies in order to live in a Shipibo-Konibo community in Peruvian Amazonia. There he wrote songs and learned about traditional medicine from Benito Arévalo Barbarán (father of Guillermo Arévalo).

At age 30 he returned to Lima, where he conducted ayahuasca ceremonies and eventually recorded his first album, Punto de fase (2001). After 10 years of ceremonies in Lima, he moved to Peru’s Sacred Valley to continue his work. Shortly thereafter, in 2003, he released the first album in his three-volume Canciones de medicina series.

He has released 13 albums as of 2021, and self-published two books: Tawantinsuyo 5.0 (2007) and Los cuatro altares (2016). Los cuatro altares is also the title of a screenplay he wrote, about a Spanish journalist who travels to Peruvian Amazonia to cover a gold-mining operation, but who sees the ecological destruction with new eyes after drinking ayahuasca. As of November 2018, the film was in pre-production.