The flag of Ecuador hangs along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway’s Avenue of Flags just outside the Free Library of Philadelphia. Nearly 3,000 miles south, the same tricolor with its condor flies over Quito, the world’s highest capital, at an elevation of 9,300 feet. In June 2025, that rarefied air carried the sound of two important works by Ecuadorian composer Segundo Luis Moreno Andrade — long believed lost until they were repatriated by the Fleisher Collection of Orchestral Music. What began eight decades ago as a gesture of musical diplomacy now continues with new works returning to Philadelphia, bringing a Pan-American neighbor closer, much like their flag on the Parkway.

Lost in Plain Sight

The journey began in 1942, when several of Moreno’s unpublished scores made it to the Free Library of Philadelphia as part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Federal Music Copying Project and the Good Neighbor Policy — initiatives that encouraged Pan-American cultural exchange. In a time of global upheaval, music transcended politics to serve as a diplomatic bridge, and the Fleisher Collection set up a cultural landing for Latin American orchestral heritage.

Moreno’s works sat safely, but silently, in our stacks for decades — until an email from his great-granddaughter, Lucía Vaca Izurieta, started them on their journey home. Lucía, now singing with the Concordia Christi Choir of Chatham, New Jersey, was preparing for a tour of Ecuador with the ensemble. Organized with the Franz Liszt Conservatory in Quito, the trip featured choral concerts in seven historic churches, culminating in a gala performance with the Conservatory’s philharmonic orchestra.

Sofía Izurieta Eguiguren, Executive Director of the Franz Liszt Conservatory, wanted to feature Moreno’s orchestral work as a centerpiece, and Lenin Alvear, a respected Ecuadorian musician and ethnomusicologist, had traced Moreno’s missing music to Philadelphia. A transcontinental partnership quickly grew to renew that Pan-American connection first forged in the 1940s.

In Philadelphia, Fleisher staff prepared copies of the holograph manuscripts, while in Quito, Luis Alberto Castro, Music Director at La Casa de la Música, and his team worked on preparing performance materials. As plans for the homecoming concert came together, the Conservatory extended an official invitation to Special Collections Music Curator Dr. Gary Galván to attend as a guest of honor — a symbolic gesture recognizing the Library’s role in safeguarding and returning Moreno’s music and opening an opportunity to write a new chapter in our story.

Luis Alberto Castro and orchestral librarian Melanie Cascante in the library of the National Symphony Orchestra of Ecuador

The excursion to Ecuador carried Fleisher’s international vision to new heights. Fleisher himself had traveled extensively to Europe in the 1920s and 1930s in search of music and commissioned the famed musicologist Nicolas Slonimsky, under the WPA, to explore Latin America in the 1940s. After the war, he funded Curator Arthur Cohn to accompany Slonimsky on a trek to Eastern Europe in search of rare works. As his own story came to an end, Fleisher established and bequeathed a restricted endowment to support the Collection and provide an annual curatorial allowance for acquiring and making accessible music "not available elsewhere." In 2025, we focused that far-reaching vision on Quito, from the heights of Pichincha, in search of new treasures.

Beyond the Stage

The gala concert at Casa de la Música opened to a full house, an electrifying event celebrating the triumphant return of Moreno’s nationalistic works, 10 de Agosto and 9 de Julio. The pieces honor Ecuador’s Primer Grito de Independencia ("First Cry of Freedom") of 1809 and the 1925 Julian Revolution, pivotal moments in the nation’s history. To mark the occasion, Conservatory Director Izurieta presented bound commemorative scores to our Curator, as well as members of Moreno’s family in attendance, honoring the international collaboration that made this musical homecoming possible. The world-premiere recordings from this concert can be heard on the August 2025 Fleisher Discoveries podcast (offered for the first time in both Spanish and English).

After the concert, the journey continued north to Cotacachi, Moreno’s birthplace, to witness the Hatun Puncha ("Great Day"), the centerpiece of the Inti Raymi festival, an ancient Andean celebration aligned with the Winter Solstice. The streets echoed throughout the day with synchronized stomping, whistling, whooping, and qinas (bamboo flutes), as groups of men and boys from local Kichwa-speaking communities took turns entering the town for the Toma de la Plaza ("Taking of the Square"). Clad in zamarros (goatskin chaps) and tall black broad-brimmed hats, they marched rhythmically along streets, parading in circles at intersections, before proceeding toward the main square. Immersed in the swirl of centuries-old ritual and contemporary festivity, the experience provided a glimpse into the cultural world that shaped Moreno’s musical upbringing.

A group from the local Kichwa community march through Cotacachi as part of the Inti Raymi festival

Between excursions, rehearsals, Concordia Christi concerts, and an afternoon in the orchestral library of Ecuador’s National Symphony Orchestra, our Curator criss-crossed the Equator to meet with contemporary Ecuadorian composers, including Marcelo Beltran, Luis Garrido Ojedo, Darik Gedeon, Paco Godoy, Giovanny Mera Rosales, and Manuela Solines — a film composer and the great-great-granddaughter of Segundo Moreno! 

Luis Garrido Ojeda, Giovanny Mera Rosales, Curator Gary Galván, and Marcelo Beltrán

As Moreno did, today’s composers are entrusting their works to Fleisher, continuing a legacy of musical preservation and cultural exchange, and affirming the continued vitality of Ecuador’s musical voice. Two of those pieces — Godoy’s Poema Sinfónico: Pasión, Muerte y Resurrección de Cristo, and Mera’s Sumak Misa — are featured on the September Fleisher Discoveries podcast. The works embody the blend of Catholic tradition and Andean heritage that has shaped Ecuadorian identity for centuries. 

From page to stage, Fleisher’s mission of musical diplomacy spans continents, crosses the Equator, bridges generations, and transcends politics. In Quito, Moreno’s long-lost works have found their way home. On the Parkway, newly discovered music arrives at the Free Library of Philadelphia — a home away from home, greeted by the waving Ecuadorian flag.