Performing Politics: Music, Representation, and Control in Chile

Abstract

In this study, I explore the politics of musical performance and memory from the 1960s to the third decade of the 21st-century. I argue that musical performances in Chile fulfilled three basic functions: to protest the political status quo, to commemorate events of the past, and to imagine new possibilities for political change. In addition, I seek to show that politicized music in Chile also reflects changing visions of community, the relationship between individuals and the state, and belonging in the Chilean polity. I employ a dual l analytical framework that combines historical and musicological analysis to focus on the relationship between the politics of musical performances and changes to Chilean politics writ large, each in context of the other. Historical analysis provides perspective on the relationship between musical performances and mechanisms of resistance, negotiation, and control. Through musicology, I analyze structural factors such as melody, rhythm, and instrumentation which enhanced the usefulness of music to these processes. By combining historical and musicological analysis, I reveal the place of musical works as valuable documents at the intersection of political and cultural history, and I argue that musical performances reveal changes in the meaning of community and Chileanness in a rapidly changing country.