Music of Chile
Chile was an important center of culture in the ancient Incan Empire, and was afterwards dominated by the Spanish. A revitalization in native musical forms didn't occur until the mid-1960s, when Angel, Isabel and Violeta Parra began playing in Santiago and popularizing Aymara and Quechua music. The Parras were connected to Gilbert Favre, Swiss-Frenchman who later became a member of influential Bolivian group Los Jairas.Arising out of the revitalization in Andean music in the 1960s, nueva canción soon emerged in Argentina and, especially, Chile. Born during a period of political struggle across Latin America, nueva canción became associated with political activism and reformers like Chilean socialist Salvador Allende and his Popular Unity government.
The roots of nueva canción are artists like Violeta Parra and Argentinian singer Atahualpa Yupanqui, who collected indigenous songs from rural payadores and helped revitalize the music of these travelling poets and singers. Parra also helped spark an interest in French chanson music, as well as Amerindian instruments like the quena and charango. In the 1960s, Parra met Gilbert Favre and helped inspire him to found Los Jairas, who would go on to become an influential group in the development of Bolivian music.
Nueva canción began its modern evolution in 1962 when musicians like the Argentinian Mercedes Sosa founded a nativist music scene in Buenos Aires. Soon, in 1965, Angel and Isabel Parra opened the Peña de los Parra, a Santiago nightclub which solidified the sound of nueva canción and found an audience for future luminaries like Patricio Manns and Víctor Jara. Jara emerged as the first major voice of nueva canción and began its tradition of assailing the perceived corruption of government officials. Songs like "Preguntas por Puerto Montt" accused officials of massacring civilians and other atrocities. Jara influenced musicians across Latin America, and even further abroad, including salsa, reggae and merengue artists. Jarra was killed in 1973 among a group of other supporters of Salvador Allende.
The new government of Augusto Pinochet threatened nueva canción artists, though did not outright ban the music, driving it underground into the 1970s. Artists like Inti Illimani and Quilapayún continued to oppose Pinochet's government in exile, and helped inspire nueva canción singers from Uruguay (Daniel Viglietti), El Salvador (Yolocamba l'ta), Mexico (Amparo Ochoa) and Nicaragua (Carlos and Luís Enrique Mejía Godoy), as well as Cuban nueva trova artists like Pablo Milanés.
By the 1990s, Pinochet and most other Latin American dictators had fallen from power, and exiles like Inti Illimani returned to their homeland. New artists arose and continued the nueva canción tradition. Emma Junaro, a Bolivian singer, for example, helped evolve the music in canto nuevo.
