La Nueva Cancion Chilena (The New Chilean Song)

In the period of the mid-1960s, the composers and singers like Angel, Isabel and Violeta Parra that started playing in Santiago, famous Aymara and Quechua music. The Parras were interconnected to Gibert Favre, Swiss-Frenchman who later became a member of ccthe powerful Bolivian orchestra Los Jaira.

source of picture: landofwinds.blogspot.com

Arising from the revitalization in Andean music in the 1960s, nueva cancion soon joined in Argentina and especially, Chile. The born during a time of political struggle across Latin America, nueva cancion became associated with political activism and reformers such as Chilean socialist Salvador Allende and his famous unity government.

The origin of nueva cancion are in artists such as Violeta Para and Argentinian composer Atahualpa Yupanqui who collected indigenous songs from rural payadores and helped to refresh the music of these travelling poets and composers. Parra also helped spark an interest in French chanson music as well as Amerindian instrument such as quena and charango. In 1960s, Parra met Gilbert Favre helped to inspire him to find Los Jairas, who would go on to become a powerful band in the development of Bolivian music.

The nueva cancion started it recent evolution in 1962 when musician such as Argentinian Mercedes Sosa that found a nativist music scene in Buenos Aires. Soon, in 1965, Angel and Isabel Parra that opened the Pena de los Parra, a Santiago night club which set the sound of nueva cancion and established an audience for future celebrities such as Patricio Manns and Victor Jara. Jara rose as the first major voice of nueva cancion and started its tradition of attacking the perceived corruption of government officials. Songs like Preguntas por Puerto Montt accused officials of killing civilians and other atrocities, Jara famous musician across Latin America and beyond.

The recent government of Augusto Pinochet threatened nueva cancion artists and drove it to underground during the 1970’s, the cassette tapes artists such as Inti-IIIimani and Quilapayun were going around in a clandestine manner. The orchestras continued to oppose Pinochet’s government from exile, and helped motivate nueva cancion composers from Uruguay (Daniel Viglietti), El Salvador (Yolocamba I’ta), Mexico (Ampara Ochoa) and Nicaragua (Carlos and Luis Enrique Mejia Godoy) as well as Cuban nueva cancion trova artists such as Pablo Milanes.