Looking back: The Significance of the Chilean New Song Movement

• In Event: Rethinking Chilean New Song: Musicians and Activists Look Back over Five Decades

Abstract

Drawing on original interviews conducted in recent years with New Song musicians in Chile, the author explores the reflections and analyses of key protagonists of the Chilean New Song movement (1965 to 1973). Using Gramsci’s concept of counterhegemony as a theoretical framework, the author presents her recent research, considering contemporary analyses of the politics, the music, and the cultural movement in Chile. How do the musicians evaluate the political and cultural impact of the movement today? How do they perceive the roots of the movement? How do they see its significance, politically and artistically, in the context of the social movements and political effervescence of the times? The author analyses New Song as an organic component of the counterhegemonic movements of the 60s in Chile, and situates the assessments of the protagonists within that framework.

Author

• J. Patrice McSherry, Long Island University, Universidad Alberto Hurtado