Meaning and urban representation in the instrumental tango of the 21s century. The album <i>Soundtrack Buenos Aires</i> by Astillero & String Orchestra

Authors

  • Paloma Martin Universidad Alberto Hurtado

Keywords:

21st-century instrumental tango, Astillero tango sextet, Buenos Aires, Music and the city, Musical analysis

Abstract

Astillero, an influential contemporary tango sextet, released its third album in 2013 with a string orchestra. The album unfolds an inseparable sonic narrative of associations with Buenos Aires through instrumental pieces as if they were the city’s soundtrack. This listening experience reveals not only the iconicity of specific gestures and the hybrid nature of its musical resources, but also the dark fervor of modernity, the echoes of the past, and the vivacious present of Buenos Aires charged with social and cultural connotations during the 21st-century where the resurgence of tango establishes.

In this article, I explore some concepts about the relationships between popular music, city (or urban places), and identity, trying to hermeneutically define how Soundtrack Buenos Aires develops its expressive strategies of urban signification and representation. From the analysis of the musical languages that intertwine with this critical apparatus, I establish three types of procedures that I call “mirages”, “reflections”, and “intersections”, three methodological approaches that I traverse through the compositions of this album.

Author Biography

Paloma Martin, Universidad Alberto Hurtado

Paloma Nicole Martin Vidal (Santiago de Chile). Musicóloga y Académica de la Universidad de Chile y de la Universidad Alberto Hurtado. Magíster en Artes mención Musicología (U. de Chile), Título de Profesora Especializada en Teoría General de la Música y Licenciada en Artes mención en Teoría de la Música. Como docente universitaria, ha dictado clases sobre teoría, investigación y análisis musical. Es miembro de varias asociaciones internacionales de musicología, como la Asociación Argentina de Musicología (AAM), la Asociación Internacional para el Estudio de la Música Popular - Rama Latinoamericana (IASPM-AL), y la International Musicological Society (IMS), entre otras. Ha participado en congresos y conferencias musicológicas en Chile y el extranjero. Sus estudios sobre música y género se han fortalecido a partir de su participación en el colectivo MyGLA (MÚSICAS Y GÉNERO - Grupo de Estudios Latinoamericanos). Sus investigaciones musicológicas versan sobre estudios de género, tango instrumental rioplatense de la “época de oro” y tango contemporáneo.

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Published

2021-11-08

Issue

Vol. 22 No. 2 (2021): Dossier: Current Tango: transmission, phonographic production, creation and “new pioneers”

Section

Dossier

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