Chamamé ( Guarani for: party, disorder) is a

folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be ca ...

genre from northeast

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

and Argentine

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...

. In 2020, Chamamé was inscribed in

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

Intangible cultural heritage An intangible cultural heritage (ICH) is a practice, representation, expression, knowledge, or skill considered by UNESCO to be part of a place's cultural heritage. Buildings, historic places, monuments, and artifacts are cultural property. In ...

list after it was nominated by Argentina in 2018. Chamamé is also a traditional musical style appreciated in borders zone of

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

, as

Paraguay Paraguay, officially the Republic of Paraguay, is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the Argentina–Paraguay border, south and southwest, Brazil to the Brazil–Paraguay border, east and northeast, and Boli ...

and

Uruguay Uruguay, officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast, while bordering the Río de la Plata to the south and the A ...

Jesuit reductions in the area encouraged cultural growth that lasted until the

Jesuits The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

were expelled by the

Spanish Crown The monarchy of Spain or Spanish monarchy () is the constitutional form of government of Spain. It consists of a Hereditary monarchy, hereditary monarch who reigns as the head of state, being the highest office of the country. The Spanish ...

in the late 18th century. Within this area, Yapeyú, Corrientes was a centre of musical culture that many point to as the birthplace of the original Chamamé. Further mixing with instruments such as the Spanish guitar, then the

violin The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino picc ...

and the

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German language, German ', from '—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a Reed (mou ...

, finally resulted in what is currently known as "Chamamé". There are recordings of Chamamé dating back to the early 20th century, and the term 'Chamamé' was already used in 1931; this type of music, prior to that, was often referred to as the ''Corrientes

Polka Polka is a dance style and genre of dance music in originating in nineteenth-century Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic. Though generally associated with Czech and Central European culture, polka is popular throughout Europe and the ...

''. The Chamamé, originally

schottische The schottische is a partnered country dance that apparently originated in Bohemia. It was popular in Victorian-era ballrooms as a part of the Bohemian folk-dance craze and left its traces in folk music of countries such as Argentina (Spanish ...

brought by the

Volga German The Volga Germans (, ; ) are ethnic Germans who settled and historically lived along the Volga River in the region of southeastern European Russia around Saratov and close to Ukraine nearer to the south. Recruited as immigrants to Russia in th ...

immigrants, has considerable Guaraní influence, mixed with the Spanish guitar and the European

from those immigrants that arrived in the area at the beginning of the 20th century. Among chamamé figures of note are Teresa Parodi, Tránsito Cocomarola, Alejandro Brittes, Ramona Galarza, and Chango Spasiuk. Chamamé arrived on stages such as

Library Of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

in September 2023 with accordionist Alejandro Brittes.

References

External links

Fundacionmemoriadelchamame.com
(La Pagina Oficial de La Fundación Memoria del Chamamé)
Chamame.tv
(La Pagina Oficial de La Fiesta Nacional del Chamamé, Argentina)
Chamigos.com
(Chamame Social Network)
SiempreChamame.com.ar
(Chamamé site and online radio)
Corrientes Chamamé
20th-century music genres Argentine styles of music Argentine dances Dance in Argentina Polka derivatives {{Paraguay-stub

See also

References

External links