The countdown is on for the XIII Chilean Congress of Musicology, which begins this Monday, October 26 and runs through October 29, 2026, at the Institute of Music of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, in Viña del Mar. Here are CMUS's papers for the first two days.

Monday, October 26

Elisa Montesinos (thesis student): "Voices That Resonate: Situated Listening, Vocal Archive, and the Production of Memory in Villa San Luis"
Thematic Panel MT01 "Reactivating Sonic Heritage and Memory: Living Culture Practices," coordinated by Federico Eisner.
9:30–11:00 a.m., Room 2-4.

This presentation analyzes the piece Villa San Luis (2021), part of the audio walk series "How a Crime Is Remembered," as a practice of producing and reactivating memory through situated listening. Through a mobile app, testimonies from former residents, recorded especially for the work, along with music, narration, and sound design, accompany participants as they walk around the site of the former Villa San Luis housing complex in Las Condes, now reduced to a ruin surrounded by corporate towers and new real estate developments. The work builds its own vocal archive from accounts produced for the audio walk.

Christian Spencer (CMUS director): "Artistic Research in Chile: Perspectives from Musicology"
Individual Papers Panel MP03 "Criticism, Practice, and Musicology," chaired by Valeska Cabrera.
2:30–4:00 p.m., Room 1-3.

What do we mean by artistic research, and how has it been institutionalized in Latin American academia? What place does musical practice hold, and how does musicology engage with this emerging field? This paper examines the place of music in artistic research from the perspective of a musicologist. Its aim is to critically characterize the field and analyze its implications for musical research and for the role of universities in artistic and academic production. Its hypothesis is that artistic research has consolidated an innovative space for knowledge production, especially in the visual and performing arts and, to a lesser extent, in music.

Valeska Cabrera (associate researcher): "Exploring the Scale of Choral Activity in Chile: Instrument Design, Analysis, and Results"
Individual Papers Panel MP03 "Criticism, Practice, and Musicology."
4:30–6:00 p.m., Room 1-3.

This research confirmed that choral activity retains its importance and is a significant source of employment for the professionals who work in it. Likewise, it is consolidated as a hub of cultural democratization, providing access and participation to people from all social classes, who can pursue music without prior knowledge of music reading and writing or vocal technique.

Tuesday, October 27

Laura Jordán (principal researcher) and Javier Rodríguez (associate researcher): "Songs (Recorded by / for) My Old Man"
Individual Papers Panel MP08 "Trajectories of Song," chaired by Ariel Mamani.
2:30–4:00 p.m., Room 1-3.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the cassette tape became a central device for migrant and exiled communities of the Southern Cone. The case of Chilean musician Willy Oddó, a member of Quilapayún, is particularly significant: from his exile in France, Oddó developed a systematic practice of recording sound letters addressed to his parents in Chile and his sister in Venezuela. In them, he described his daily life, shared concerns and reflections on exile and the dictatorship, and sang songs that were meaningful to his family circle. After his death in 1991, the tapes were kept in the family archive and reused decades later by his son, the musician Ismael Oddó (currently a member of Quilapayún), who used them as the basis for the album Canciones con mi viejo (Cultura Violeta, 2021).

Javiera Montecinos (thesis student): "Listening Without Knowing How to Pray: Aurality and Ethnography in the Canto a lo Divino Vigils of Central Chile"
Individual Papers Panel MP10 "Listening and Aurality," chaired by Lalau Yllarramendiz.
4:30–6:00 p.m., Room 1-3.

This paper reflects on the regimes of listening at work in the Canto a lo Divino vigils and on the methodological implications they impose on ethnographic research: What is heard in a vigil, and what does it mean for an anthropologist to learn to listen to the divine? Drawing on Ana María Ochoa Gautier's (2014) concept of "aurality," understood as the set of historically situated practices through which listening builds knowledge, belonging, and ways of life, Montecinos argues that Canto a lo Divino vigils operate under their own auditory regime, in which sound would be a set of modulations of the divine. That presence, latent in all things, beings, and hearts, becomes evident in the bodies, the spaces, and the biblical word that the singer embodies and blends.

View and download the full program on the Chilean Society of Musicology's official website.