We continue our coverage of the XIII Chilean Congress of Musicology, which runs through October 29 at the Institute of Music of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, in Viña del Mar. In this second part, we present CMUS's papers for Wednesday, October 28, and Thursday, October 29.

Wednesday, October 28

Thematic Panel "Music in Numbers: Quantitative Analysis for the Study of Gender Gaps, Markets, and Collaboration Networks"
9:30–11:00 a.m., Room 2-4.

This panel presents research developed within the "Innovation, Technology, and Emerging Practices" line, one of the three priority areas of the Millennium Nucleus for Musical and Sonic Cultures (CMUS). The work presented is the result of close interdisciplinary collaboration among specialists in musicology, cultural sociology, and data science, aimed at implementing the quantitative turn and dataset analysis in the study of contemporary music industries in Chile.

Daniel Party (principal researcher): "The Inaudible Gap: Gender Inequality in Music Streaming Consumption in Chile (2017–2025)"

For this work, a dataset was designed based on the daily lists of the most-listened-to songs on Spotify in Chile, complemented with demographic and musical variables, such as musical genre. Drawing on this data infrastructure, the research addresses the following questions: Are there differences in gender gaps when comparing listening to international music with listening to Chilean music? How do local gaps compare with trends in other countries? Is there a correlation between the gender gap and musical genre preferences?

Sebastián Muñoz (associate researcher): "Networks, Categories, and Collaboration: The Emergence and Consolidation of Chilean Urban Music"

This paper analyzes the formation and consolidation of Chilean Urban Music between 2014 and 2024, based on a database of musical collaborations built from Spotify metadata. Relationships are operationalized through featurings between artists, understood as an observable layer that allows us to examine broader relational processes within this musical world. The study compares a phase of national formation and consolidation (2014–2022) with a phase of boom and internationalization (2022–2024).

Javiera Muñoz Retamal (thesis student): "Return as Archive and Memory: The Artistic Trajectories of Mercedes Sosa and Isabel Parra in the 1980s"
Thematic Panel MT08 "Musical Circulations in the Southern Cone: Networks, Repertoires, and Actors (20th and 21st Centuries)," coordinated by Julián Delgado.
2:30–4:00 p.m., Room 2-4.

Based on her ongoing doctoral dissertation, this paper examines in an interrelated way the trajectories of return from exile during the 1980s of two leading figures of the Latin American Nueva Canción: Argentine singer Mercedes Sosa and Chilean singer Isabel Parra. Grounded in performance, gender, and memory studies, and drawing on an analysis of autobiographical discourse, musical output, and both artists' presence in the press of the period, it seeks to understand their artistic activity and the ways in which they reworked their musical personas in the context of the democratic transitions of the Southern Cone.

Thursday, October 29

Carla Pinochet Cobos (CMUS alternate director): "Vertical City: Sonic Coexistence and Aural Disputes in Estación Central"
Thematic Panel MT09 "Auralities of Precarity: Noise, Affect, and Urban Life in Santiago," coordinated by Ana María Díaz Pinto.
9:30–11:00 a.m., Room 2-4.

This paper examines the aural conflicts that emerge around the vertical urbanization of the Estación Central district in Santiago, Chile, one of the most emblematic enclaves of contemporary neoliberal urbanism. After the regulatory liberalization of the 1990s, which enabled the proliferation of high-density residential towers (popularly known as "vertical ghettos"), the convergence of densification, international migration, and infrastructural precarity has created a unique setting in which to examine how practices of sound and listening shape processes of identity and otherness.

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