This week on From the Vault we celebrate the godmother of Chilean New Folklore Movement (Nueva Cancion), Violeta Parra, through her music and the stories of prolific Pacifica Radio producer Carlos Hagan.
In February, 1973, Carlos Hagen turned his attention to Violeta Parra, the highly influential Chilean musician who, beginning in the 1950's, scoured the Chilean pueblos, to document traditional Chilean songs for all occasions. Violeta Parra would reconstitute what she learned from her travels into a new folkloric music, or Nueva Cancion, to help tell the stories of contemporary Chilean society. She would influence musicians in her own country (such as Victor Jara) as well as musicians here in the United States and beyond: her most popular song, "Gracias a La Vida" was covered by artists such as Argentinean Mercedes Sosa, Mexico's Chavela Vargas, and American Joan Baez. In this program, we'll hear Hagen present incredibly rare Violeta Parra recordings from his personal collection and share wonderful insight into each song, translating important passages and context into English for his American audience.
Some of Violeta Parra's music included in this week's program:
La Refolosa (Popular dance in Chile)
Nina Hichicera (Bewitching Girl)
La Petaquita (The Little Purse)
La Jardinera (The Gardening Girl)
La Cueca Larga de los Meneses (Poem by her brother Nicanor Parra "The Large Chilean Dance La Cueca of the El Palomo (The Male Dove)
Ausencia (Absence - Sad Love Song)
From the Vault is presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project, funded in part by an award from the GRAMMY Foundation and the National Historical Publications and Records Commission at the National Archives and Records Administration, and past grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ford Foundation, and the American Archive funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, along with the generous support of Pacifica Radio Listeners. We also thank our partners and collaborators at the Pop-Up Archive, Amara, Other Minds Archives, George Blood Audio, and the California Audio Visual Preservation Project.
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