Music video

Because it's still a nice one...

Shut Up And Drive. I guess i should keep my mouth shut :p

30 Seconds to Mars Buenos Aires

Last month 30 Seconds to Mars was playing in Buenos Aires. I know a big fan there who had a great evening and was very much involved in promoting before the event. :) So here is a clip: From Yesterday life.

Amor Porteño

Tango from the so called Gotan project. Tango full of passion as it should be. Recommended by a friend :)

Feel me Heaven

Weekend so music. Today From A Posteriori from Enigma the track Feel me Heaven.

Mano a mano

The maestro himself: Carlos Gardel. For the tango lovers.

YannTiersen

Interpretando Le Moulin uno de los temas compuestos para la banda de sonido de la pelicula Amelie. Theme Le Moulin from the movie Amelie. Nicely played.

Les Luthiers - Concerto Grosso alla Rustica

Les Luthiers are well known in Argentina and they exist 40 years now. So here is a nice act from them :)

María Carmen Graña

María Graña was born in Buenos Aires and since her early childhood she had a passion for singing. At age twelve she started to study with the teacher Elvira Aquilano, with whom she studied for seventeen years. In 1970 she appeared at a contest on the television program "Canta el pueblo" on Channel 7. Then she sang "La canción de Buenos Aires" and the board awarded her the first prize.

More

In the movie a duet with the late and legendary Carlos Gardel. Embedding disabled so use this link to watch. Great if you love tango.

Deep Forest - Sweet Lullaby

One of my favorites :)



Here is some explanation from some folks

"Sasi sasi o to aro aro
O angi si nau boroi amu
Ni ma oe e fasi korona
Dolali dasa na, lao dai afuimae
Afuta guau mauri, Afuta wela inomae

Sasi sasi ae o angisi nau
Boroi nima oe e fasi koro na
Dolali dasa na, lao dai afuimae
Afuta guau mauri, Afuta wela inomae
Young brother, young brother you be quiet
Although you are crying to me
Your father has left us
He has gone to the place of the dead
Protect the head of the living, Protect the orphan child

Young brother, young brother hey? although you are crying to me
Your father has left us
He has gone to the place of the dead
Protect the head of the living, protect the orphan child
Interpreting the Song:

This interpretation and lyrics come from one very old lady, living in Fataleka (one of the Solomon Islands), as translated by her grandchildren. The song is said to be very old and hence the new generation does not understand every word.

The song is about a young child crying because he does not see his father with the family. In response his elder sister sung this song to comfort as well as tell him the reality, with an appeal for their deceased father to protect this child in the land of the living (local ancient belief is that the dead care for loved ones they left behind).

The old woman also said that the sample, if listened to carefully, used some words and sounds that were added to make it sound more melo. Expression of some words twice, as well pronounciation of most of the words are different from that of normal conversation. Eg. 'O' should be OE', Angiangi should be angisi. This is very common with local traditional songs.

Thanks to the people of the Solomon Islands for the lyrics, translation, and interpretation"

Russian maestro Rostropovich dies

And what a great musician and human being he was.

Rostropovich was feted by Russia's President Vladimir Putin The cellist performs

"The celebrated Russian cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich has died at the age of 80.

A master musician, Mr Rostropovich was also renowned for his backing for human rights and opposition to Soviet rule.

He spent much of his career abroad, in self-imposed exile from the Soviet Union over his support for Nobel prize writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

But he returned as communism collapsed and performed a Bach suite as the Berlin Wall came down in 1989.

President Vladimir Putin said that his death was a "terrible loss" for Russian culture.

The best step was not found in music, but in one page of this letter Mstislav Rostropovich Obituary: Rostropovich

At Mr Rostropovich's 80th birthday celebrations a month ago, Mr Putin called the musician not only "a brilliant cellist and gifted conductor," but also "a firm defender of human rights".

He died at a Moscow clinic after a long illness, his spokeswoman said.

Reports from Russia said he would be buried in Moscow's Novodevichy cemetery, where his friend, the former President Boris Yeltsin, was laid to rest earlier this week.

Exile overseas

Mr Rostropovich studied at the Moscow Conservatoire under composers such as Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich, rapidly building a reputation for himself.

The cellist played Bach as the Berlin Wall came down

But his support for dissidents such as Mr Solzhenitsyn - declared in a letter to state-run newspaper Pravda in 1970 - made him a target for the Russian authorities.

He left the Soviet Union and spent several years in the West with his wife, soprano Galina Vishnevskaya, and their children, as he continued to build an international career.

In November 1989, he gave a impromptu performance at the Berlin Wall as demonstrators tore it down, a show that was reported around the world.

Later the cellist was rehabilitated by then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, and he was able to return to Russia to perform.

In August 1991, he flew to Moscow to support Mr Yeltsin as hardliners attempted to reverse Mr Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika reforms, spending days protesting in the parliament building.

He latterly divided his time between Russia, the US and France.

In an interview with the BBC World Service in 2002, he said that the letter to Pravda was the best thing he had done in his life.

"The best step was not found in music, but in one page of this letter," he said. "Since that moment my conscience was clean and clear."

Source

Les Luthiers

Les-Luthiers is a comedy-musical group from Argentina, very popular also in several other Spanish speaking countries such as Spain, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Uruguay and Venezuela. They were formed in 1967 by Gerardo Masana, during the height of a period of very intense choral activity in Argentina's state universities. Their outstanding characteristic are the home-made musical instruments (hence the name luthiers, French for "musical instrument maker"), some of them extremely sophisticated, which they skillfully employ in their recitals to produce music and texts full of high class and refined humor. Since 1980 they have had collaboration from Roberto Fontanarrosa, a renowned Argentine cartoonist and writer.

Informal Instruments

The group's first home-made musical instrument, the bass-pipe a vara (a sort of trombone), was created by Gerardo Masana, the founder of the group, by joining cardboard tubes found in the garbage and domestic items. Forty years later, this instrument is still being used on stage.

The first informal instruments were relatively simple, like the Gum-Horn, made with a hose, a funnel and a trumpet's mouthpiece, and some of them were born as a parody of musical instruments, which is the case of the latín and the violata among others.

As time went by Carlos Iraldi became a member of the group, and as "Les Luthiers' luthier", he continued with the creation of strange instruments, like the mandocleta, a bicycle whose rear wheel moves the strings of a mandolin; the bajo barríltono, a Double bass whose body is a giant barrel, and so on.

After Iraldi's death in 1995 Hugo Domínguez took his place, and made instruments such as the desafinaducha, the nomeolbídet etc.

Members

* Carlos López Puccio
* Jorge Maronna
* Marcos Mundstock
* Carlos Núñez Cortés
* Daniel Rabinovich

Former members

* Gerardo Masana, founder (died in 1973)
* Ernesto Acher (left the group in 1986)

Source

Mercedes Sosa

Mercedes Sosa (born 9 July 1935) is an Argentine singer immensely popular throughout Latin America. With her roots in Argentinian folk music, she became one of the preeminent exponents of nueva canción. Sosa is greatly admired for the depth and beauty of her contralto voice. She is nicknamed "La Negra" by her fans for her long, jet-black hair.

Sosa was born in San Miguel de Tucumán, in the northwestern province of Argentina, of mestizo descent from French and Amerindian (Quechuan) ancestry. In 1950, at age fifteen, she won a singing competition organized by a local radio station and was given a contract to perform for two months.

Sosa and her first husband, Manuel Oscar Matus, with whom she has one son, were key players in the mid-60s nueva canción movement (which was called nuevo cancionero in Argentina). Her first record was Canciones con Fundamento, a collection of Argentine folk songs.

In 1967, Sosa toured with great success the United States and Europe. In subsequent years, she performed and recorded extensively, broadening her repertoire to include material from throughout Latin America.

In the early 1970s, Sosa released two concept albums in collaboration with composer Ariel Ramírez and lyricist Félix Luna: Cantata Sudamericana and Mujeres Argentinas (Argentine Women). She also recorded a tribute to Chilean poet Violeta Parra.

A supporter of Perón in her youth, she has favored leftist causes throughout her life. After the military junta of Jorge Videla came to power in 1976, the atmosphere in Argentina grew increasingly oppressive. At a concert in La Plata in 1979, Sosa was searched and arrested on stage, and the attending crowd was arrested. Banned in her own country, she moved to Paris and then to Madrid. Her second husband had died in 1978.

Sosa returned to Argentina in 1982, several months before the military regime collapsed as a result of the Falklands War, and gave a series of concerts at the Opera theater in Buenos Aires, where she invited many of her younger colleagues to share the stage. A double album of recordings from these performances became an instant best seller.

In the following years, Sosa continued to tour both in Argentina and abroad, performing in such venues as the Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall and the Mogador in París.

Sosa's repertoire continued to broaden, and she made recordings in various styles. She collaborated frequently with Argentine musicians such as León Gieco, Charly García, Antonio Tarragó Ros, Rodolfo Mederos and Fito Páez, and other Latin American artists such as Milton Nascimento and Silvio Rodríguez.

Sosa participated in a 2001 production of the Misa Criolla by Ariel Ramírez.

She opposed the Argentine president Carlos Menem who was in office from 1989 to 1999. She supported the election of Néstor Kirchner who became president in 2003.

Sosa is UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for Latin America and the Caribbean. She has won the Latin Grammy Award for Best Folk Album in 2000 ("Misa Criolla"), 2003 ("Acustico") and 2006 ("Corazon Libre"), as well as many international awards.

Source

Música Argentina: Cumbia

Argentine Cumbia is a kind of music and dance which has much popularity in Argentina. It is somehow seen as music for the lower classes. You can find it a lot on the TV. It has a distinctive beat which is very characteristic. Compare it a bit with Reggae which is also very distinctive. It's mainly electronic music with percussion. It's a bit hard to explain like this so it's better to show a movie how it goes.

Tango Day in Argentina and Carlos Gardel

Say tango and you must say Carlos Gardel in Argentina. One of the most legendary artists of the country. Actually he was born Gardes and not Gardel. He changed his name laterUnfortunately he didn't get a long life. At age 35 he died in a plane collision. Yet his influence was so profound that in 1977 Tango Day was instituted on December 11th. This is the birthday of Carlos Gardel. On this day many pay tribute to his grave and it's tango all over the city on this day. If you like the tango this would be the most excellent time to have your vacation. Besides that it's Spring so the weather is most of the time extremely well.

The picture is one of the most famous images of him. Trademark his hat. If you want to read more about him check here.