Cantos Cautivos

(Captive Songs)

Music was often written, sung and heard in political detention and torture centres in Chile during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990).

For many political prisoners, to write, play or listen to music were ways to register, process, remember, forget or transcend difficult experiences.

Music helped them to maintain a sense of normality, it was a tool to preserve dignity and hope, to have fun and communicate with other inmates and with the outside world.

The repressive system also employed music as a form of domination and indoctrination, and in connection with torture and other types of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.

The memory of these experiences is an important fragment of the lives of those who resisted, fought and shared their stories for this project.

We invite you to explore and share these experiences.

About the project

Portrait of Manuel Flores
Campamento de Prisioneros Chacabuco
Watercolour by Francisco Aedo

Explore

Testimonies can be explored by detention centre, witness or victim, via the menu, the search box or tags.

Your memories on music in detention are part of our collective memory. Share them via a text or audio.

Featured

Forthcoming and recent talks

"Cantos Cautivos, la música en los centros de detención política de la dictadura militar chilena", World Forum on Human Rights, Buenos Aires, ex-ESMA, March 2023.
'Music and Trauma: Why Knowing One’s Limits Matters', 'Music and Medicine: Musicological and Medical-Historical Approaches' Conference, 2021.
'Memorias Sonoras, Prisión Política y Dictaduras en el Cono Sur', webinar of the Núcleo de Sociología del Arte y las Prácticas of the Univ. of Chile, 2021.
'Memories of Captured Song: Revisiting the History and Legacies of Music-Making in Chilean Detention Center Through the Cantos Cautivos Testimonial Project', 'Music, Sound, and Trauma: Interdisciplinary Perspectives' Conference, 2021.

A flor de piel (Viña del Mar, 2022)

Carmen Espinoza and César were arrested and tortured in Colonia Dignidad in April 1975. Each had a different experience, but something united them: music. Watch an excerpt of the interview and explore other stories about Colonia Colonia Dignidad in Cantos Cautivos.

El País newspaper features Cantos Cautivos

How a comedian became the centre of a controversy involving Pinochet, the victims of his repression, a man trying to jump the Berlin Wall, and a ruined singer. Read the article and listen to the podcast.

Interview on CBC/Radio-Canada

In November 2019, CBC broadcast a programme on the soundtrack of protests in Chile, during the current uprising and also in political detention centres during the dictatorship. Listen to it here.

The Oxford Research Encyclopedia highlights Cantos Cautivos

An entry on digital resources by Danielle Barefoot notes that our project "serves as a sonic living-museum and offers essential content for survivors, researchers, and teachers." Read it here.

Short Video Tamo Daleko (Punta Arenas / Dawson Island, 2018)

Part of the Fragments of Memory series of the Central Univ. of Chile's Audiovisual Laboratory, this video explores the song “Tamo Daleko”, adapted and used as a symbol of resistance by political prisoners. Watch the video here and see other testimonies about “Tamo Daleko” in Cantos Cautivos.

Ed Vulliamy launches his book, When Words Fail: A Life with Music, War and Peace

The author, journalist of The Guardian and The Observer, with his band at the launch in London in Sept 2018. The book contains a chapter on Cantos Cautivos. Photo: Daniel Díaz.

Cantos Cautivos at the British Museum

The British Museum's exhibition I Object, Ian Hislop's search for dissent (Sept 2018-Jan 2019) included the recording of "Doctorcitos", collected by the Cantos Cautivos team.

Reconstruction of "Filistoque's Cueca", written by Víctor Canto in Chacabuco camp

Forty-four years later, the work has been reconstructed and recorded for the first time by MACOMBA, a group directed by Marcelo Coulon (Inti-Illimani) and formed in honour of the detained-disappeared Marcelo Concha Bascuñán. Listen to the recording and read the testimony here.