Past Programs
Composers - 2008
Francesca Ancarola (First Aired on 7/5/2008)
02/10/2008
Lonquén is Chilean singer/songwriter Francesca Ancarola’s tribute to Victor Jara, the murdered nueva canción singer whose songs became the rallying cry for Chile’s generation who lived under Pinochet’s dictatorship.
Santiago-based Francesca has won a Fulbright Scholarship, completed a master’s in classical voice and opera, studied jazz guitar, cello and piano, and runs a noted vocal workshop. She felt that, since the prohibition of Jara’s songs was lifted in 1989, his legacy has grown even stronger. In his songs she finds the most complete expression of the contrast between his personal biography and the art he strove to achieve. The band mixes jaz sensibilities with traditional, folk ones. The album includes 11 Jara songs, a poem by Pablo Neruda set to music by Francesca, and her own song, the title track, about Longquén, the rural settlement in which the charred, splintered remains of 15 people who ‘disappeared’ in 1973 were found in abandoned limestone ovens in 1978. This discovery resulted in the unravelling of a web of institutional lies cast over Chile by the military dictatorship.
Francesca Ancarola
07/05/2008
Lonquén is Chilean singer/songwriter Francesca Ancarola’s tribute to Victor Jara, the murdered nueva canción singer whose songs became the rallying cry for Chile’s generation who lived under Pinochet’s dictatorship.
Santiago-based Francesca has won a Fulbright Scholarship, completed a master’s in classical voice and opera, studied jazz guitar, cello and piano, and runs a noted vocal workshop. She felt that, since the prohibition of Jara’s songs was lifted in 1989, his legacy has grown even stronger. In his songs she finds the most complete expression of the contrast between his personal biography and the art he strove to achieve. The band mixes jazzy sensibilities with traditional, folk ones. The album includes 11 Jara songs, a poem by Pablo Neruda set to music by Francesca, and her own song, the title track, about Longquén, the rural settlement in which the charred, splintered remains of 15 people who ‘disappeared’ in 1973 were found in abandoned limestone ovens in 1978. This discovery resulted in the unravelling of a web of institutional lies cast over Chile by the military dictatorship.
