Paraguay Primeval by Carol Ann Weaver is a musical work featuring stories of Mennonites who fled to Paraguay from Russian and Canada in the 1920s and beyond. This January 2013 Manitoba tour takes this music to some of the very people who were born in Paraguay but have moved back to Canada. It is the hope that their stories will be thus celebrated.

Paraguay Primeval helps to tell the extraordinary story of Mennonites finding new « Promised Land » by moving to Paraguay from Canada in order to retain their own schools, and from Russia to flee the Bolshevik Revolution and the Stalinist regime. Once in Paraguay, these Mennonites settled in the « Green Hell » of the Chaco, suffering typhoid and other illnesses, but ever building colonies, growing crops, and maintaining livestock, while creating schools, churches, hospitals, and industries which lured back many indigenous peoples. The desert brought forth new life.

Paraguay Primeval was premiered at Conrad Grebel on March 3, 2010, and has subsequently been performed multiple times in Canada, South Africa, Virginia, and part of it in Dieburg, Germany. The work has been released on CD in 2012.

Carol Ann Weaver is an eclectic composer, pianist, writer, and music professor at Conrad Grebel University College/University of Waterloo whose music has been heard throughout North America, in Europe, Africa, Korea and Paraguay. She has produced seven CDs and tours extensively with Rebecca, often doing African or Mennonite-themed music. She previously taught at WLU, at [then] MBBC in Winnipeg, and at EMU in Virginia.

Rebecca Campbell is one of the most evocative, exquisite vocalists in Canada who has toured and recorded extensively with Jane Siberry, Three Sheets to the Wind, and many others. Her CDs receive high critical acclaim.

Track list:

1. Asunción to Chaco (soundscape) 6:45
2. Puerto Casado (text: Dora Dueck) 5:50
3. Well Water (text: Lenchen Klassen Esan) 1:27
4. Uncle Hans (text: Marlene Derksen)
5. November Eleven (text: Johann Regehr) 4:54
6. Women’s Village (text: Herta Franz) 2:20
7. Tango 1:14
8. Der Mond (text: Agnes Balzer) 3:19
9. Chaco Christmas (text: Rudy Wiebe) 3:09
10. Lengua Women (text: Rudy Wiebe) 2:03
11. Chaco Spring (text: Rudy Wiebe) 6:00

Performed by:
Rebecca Campbell, lead vocals
Carol Ann Weaver, piano
Emma Elkinson, flute
Ben Bolt-Martin, cello
Paul Dueck, harp, vocals
Kyle Skillman, drums