Latin American musical intangible cultural heritage in its pedagogical-political dimension

Abstract

The definition of intangible cultural heritage proposed by the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, established by UNESCO in 2003, includes popular music. In this regard, and also following the Convention, the safeguarding of such heritage is directly related to measures aimed at guaranteeing the viability of intangible cultural heritage, basically through formal and non-formal education. This leads us to ask ourselves about the ways of teaching music in our country. In general, until the mid-1990s, the music taught at schools and universities fell within a Central European matrix of the "French school", and it was only since 1994 when popular music university curricula began to take shape. In this context, the Technical Degree in Music Production of the National University of San Luis is the first university program in Argentina with such a characteristic. This work aims to show how the institutions of formal education in our country have played an important role in the denial and invisibility of musical heritage or popular music, in favor of the Central European Musical Canon. Finally, it is confirmed that the formal teaching of Latin American popular music has been taking on an increasingly important role in recent years, with the growing inclusion of this music in school, tertiary and university curricula.