with Curi Cachimuel
Kinti is named after the Quechua word for hummingbird, qʼinti — a creature that hovers between worlds, travels between continents, and moves with extraordinary precision and beauty. Like their namesake, Rebecca Hartka and Curi Inti Cachimuel Amaguaña build a bridge between North and South America, between ancient traditions and living improvisation, between the concert stage and the healing circle. Since 2021, Kinti has been inspiring audiences throughout New England with a sound unlike anything else in the region: cello and indigenous Andean instruments — charango, quena flute, panpipes, guitar, drum, and more — woven together with original looped and partially improvised compositions drawn from Celtic and Andean ancestral music and from the living natural world. Their debut album Sassafras (2025) presents looped and improvised works from this partnership, alongside collaborators Jessica Rossi and José Lezcano. The duo first performed together when Duo Mundo — Hartka’s long-running ensemble with Grammy-nominated guitarist José Lezcano — invited Curi Inti to perform at the Nubanusit Community in Peterborough, NH. That encounter gave rise to Kinti.
Kinti performs in both concert and ceremonial contexts. In healing spaces, the music is not background — it is responsive, present, and calibrated to the arc of the experience. The duo has played for breathwork circles, cacao ceremonies, and sound healing gatherings and retreats. They bring to these spaces the same depth of preparation and musical intelligence they bring to the concert hall, and a listening capacity developed over years of improvised work in intimate and vulnerable human contexts.
Inti Curi Cachimuel is a virtuosic Quichua indigenous musician and composer from Otavalo, Ecuador with fluidity in a wide range of styles from traditional Andean to jazz. Cachimuel has performed in places such as the Lincoln Center, Smithsonian Folk Festival, Pequot Museum and others. Some of his other musical projects include “Runa Jazz” a music ensemble with a unique sound blending Andean music with jazz. Curi Inti Cachimuel Amaguaña — often known professionally as Curi Cachimuel or Inti Curi Cachimuel — is a virtuosic Indigenous Kichwa musician, composer, and multi-instrumentalist from Otavalo, Ecuador. His name, “Curi Inti,” translates to “Golden Sun” in the Kichwa language. He belongs to the Cachimuel Amaguaña family, a highly celebrated and influential musical lineage from the Kichwa Otavalo people. His family founded Yarina — a prominent musical ensemble and cultural school dedicated to preserving and revitalizing traditional Kichwa music and dance. Curi Inti received early musical training at the Luis Ulpiano de la Torre School in Cotacachi, Ecuador, and later advanced his formal studies at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito. He is fluent in a vast array of instruments traditional to the Andes, including the zamponoa (pan flutes), charango (a small Andean stringed instrument), quena flute, guitar, and traditional percussion — each played with the virtuosity of a lifelong practitioner and the presence of someone for whom music has always been medicine. Curi Inti is widely recognized for bridging the gap between traditional Indigenous roots and contemporary genres. He founded Runa Jazz, an ensemble pioneering a unique fusion of ancestral Andean rhythms and structures with contemporary jazz improvisation. He has also composed and released several solo tracks and albums, including Runa Taki (De Sur A Sur), LLAKTAPURA (2024), and RESISTENCIA (2026).As a cultural ambassador for Kichwa music, Curi Inti has performed at world-renowned venues and festivals, including Lincoln Center (New York), the Smithsonian Folklife Festival (Washington, D.C.), and the Pequot Museum (Connecticut). His music catalog is available on Spotify, and he shares ongoing performances and local events on Instagram.
In her Doctoral Music studies and beyond, Rebecca Hartka has always concurrently explored a variety of styles and improvisation. With a strong impulse to connect across cultures, Hartka was inspired to travel to Cuba and the Yucatán, Mexico in 2019 and 2020, where she collaborated with Mayan musicians in concert. In 2022 with a Water Honoring project, she improvised for bodies of water around New England, raising money for the CRC, Connecticut (Quinetucket) River Conservancy as well as the Schagticoke First Nations Land Restoration Project. Improvising with water inspired her to layer sounds using a loop station which culminated in May 2023 with Resonating with Nature a collaborative set of performances with husband Glass Artist Wesley Fleming at the Glass Biennale in Denizli, Turkey.
There is no comparable offering in the world music and healing landscape: a classically trained cellist with doctoral credentials, twenty years of international performance experience across four continents, and playing described by the Hanoi Times as “magical and eloquent” — in deep musical partnership with a virtuosic Quichua indigenous musician from Otavalo. The Celtic-Andean bridge Kinti builds is genuinely singular.
Rebecca Hartka 