More than 16,000 documents are now returning to Paraguay. This marks the end of an adventure spanning nearly 40 years, devoted to Latin American baroque music. 
By J.-E. Eichenlaub
A great adventure has come to an end. A lifetime’s adventure, perhaps? It certainly is for Alain Pacquier, co-founder of The Baroque Trails in the New World and founder of the Sarrebourg Music Festival on the Franco-German border. The city has sold the Saint-Ulrich convent, which had housed the International Centre for the Baroque Trails in the New World and its library of 16,000 titles. The precious documents have found a natural new home at the National Library of Paraguay: “This proud heritage came from Latin America; it had to return there,” says founder Alain Pacquier.
From Les Chemins du Baroque to Caminos del Barroco
“She arrived in Paraguay last night.” With these words, Alain Pacquier—founder of the Saintes Festival and the Sarrebourg International Festival—recounts, in Strasbourg this April 2025, the end point of a 40-year journey. She? His biblioteca, i.e. his library. The one he patiently assembled over the years, along the Baroque Trails of the New World. An adventure that began in 1985.
Over time, and through countless exchanges with Latin America, the International Centre for the Baroque Trails became home to a unique corpus of 16,000 documents. It includes facsimiles from across Latin America: scores, treatises on music in South America, inventories, ecclesiastical archives. “The continent’s musical output up to the 19th century is entirely sacred,” notes Alain Pacquier. Also preserved are historical books on evangelization, slavery, and acculturation. Part of the library has been donated to the Alliance Française of Asunción, and the rest to Paraguay’s National Library. The books arrived safely in Asunción on Tuesday, April 4, and will be housed in a dedicated room under the name Caminos del Barroco de los Nuevos Mundis, donación de Sarrebourg, Francia [Baroque Trails of the New Worlds, Sarrebourg donation, France]. There, they will be digitized and disseminated throughout Latin America from the South American continent itself. Thus, the Baroque Trails of the New World continue.
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