Chile: 11 September 45 years ago
"The contrast between the beauty and the brutality that people are capable of was inescapable. The social power people invest in music became a permanent part of my thinking. Notable for its absence in the time after the coup was the nueva canción (new song) folk music movement. Urban musicians had taken rural traditional music and transformed it into inspirational expressions calling for human dignity, equality and compassion. The military regime outlawed it, and it disappeared entirely from the public Chilean soundscape. Overnight, peñas—gathering places for nueva canción musicians and fans—became a thing of the past. It was risky to play or even possess instruments such as the quena flute or the charango guitar because of their association with the socialist movement."
An Eyewitness of Pinochet's Coup
"The contrast between the beauty and the brutality that people are capable of was inescapable. The social power people invest in music became a permanent part of my thinking. Notable for its absence in the time after the coup was the nueva canción (new song) folk music movement. Urban musicians had taken rural traditional music and transformed it into inspirational expressions calling for human dignity, equality and compassion. The military regime outlawed it, and it disappeared entirely from the public Chilean soundscape. Overnight, peñas—gathering places for nueva canción musicians and fans—became a thing of the past. It was risky to play or even possess instruments such as the quena flute or the charango guitar because of their association with the socialist movement."
An Eyewitness of Pinochet's Coup
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