On March 2nd, a new book from Berlin-based publishing company Contingent Sounds will be released. Entitled ‘Switched On: The Dawn of Electronic Sound by Latin American Women’, it’s a work which focuses on the pioneering female talent emerging from South America in the early 20th century. Exploring avant-garde and experimental music, the 210-page volume features personal essays, archived photos and interviews with titans of the era, including Elsa Justel, Margarita Paksa, Nelly Morett, Teresa Burga and many more. The release is a pioneering move, and one which the music world sees as long, long overdue.
Edited by Luis Alvarado, an independent curator and researcher, and Alejandra Cardenas, an experimental musician, artist and researcher, ‘Switched On…’ also includes interviews with two composers with vital roles to play in forging new directions in South American electronic music. French-Uruguayan composer and pianist Renée Pietrafesa Bonnet researched and performed early electroacoustic music, while German-Chilean composer Leni Alexander studied electronic music and then went on to teach young and disabled children.
The book has a foreword which sets out its raison d’etre. “The texts presented here bring us closer to the work of a new generation of researchers who have focused on offering a non-canonical reading of the history of music and technology in Latin America,” it states. “In a way, this publication is the record of a new vision, an account of the condition of being a woman in the field of music technology at a time when this was a predominantly masculine domain.”
As an added bonus, there’s also a playlist of early electronic music and compositions from Latin American women, taking in some truly groundbreaking early sounds. You can check it out on YouTube now. The book is available to pre-order now, so be sure to snap up a copy – this is essential reading not just for lovers of electronic music, but for anyone with an interest in musical history
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