Argentina [World Routes]

Misiones province in North East Argentina is a sliver of land between Brazil and Paraguay, more tropical than the rest of Argentina, it is part of the ancestral home of the Guarani people. Home to a large number of Jesuit missions in the 17th Century, during the early part of the 20th Century Misiones received an influx of European immigrants to work on the land, especially from Poland and the Ukraine. These East European farmers brought with them the accordion, which added Schottische and Polkas to an already rich cultural mix and the Chamame was born.

Banning Eyre takes internationally renowned chamame accordionist Chango Spasiuk back to his roots in Misiones, to hear about how he learnt the accordion, and to meet and record local musicians. Sergio Tarnovsky is a young local talent from Apostoles who plays the 21 button diatonic accordion known as the verdulera. Lalo Doreto hails from the town of Obera, and is a local radio host, singer, and guitarist, and he puts on a special afternoon session with some friends in his back yard.

As well as being the home of Chamame, Misiones is also the home of 'yerba mate', the bitter green tea drunk with a metal straw from a hollowed out gourd by almost everyone in Argentina. Chango shows Banning the right, and the wrong way to make and drink it.

On the way back from the North East they stop in at the Anconetani accordion factory in Buenos Aires, the first Argentine handmade accordion company, to meet its octogenarian patron Nazereno Anconetani, for a tour of the workshops and a session with one of Chamame's elder statesmen, accordionist Tilo Escobar.

Presenter: Banning Eyre

Producer: Peter Meanwell.

Banning Eyre visits Misiones province in Argentina to learn about chamame music.

Programme exploring music from around the world

Banning starts his journey in Buenos Aires, a teeming city that feels like a crumbling turn-of-the-century European capital, but with the colour and vibrancy of Latin America. Modern Argentina was built upon waves of European immigration in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, and it was the music of these immigrants, mixed with the milonga of the Argentine countryside, the habanera of Cuban sailors, and the candombe rhythms of African slaves, that formed a potent new form, one that stood for the passion, the grit and the hardships of this new city - Tango. Tango's origin as a music is complex, born as it was in the brothels and cabarets on the fringes of society, yet it is intimately connected with the identity of urban Argentina. Stepping past the cliches of the dancer with the red rose, Banning meets musicians who explore the rich history of the music, both as a key to its future, but also to their place in modern Argentine society. As well as the music, Banning takes a visit to the decorated grave of singer Carlos Gardel and samples the famed Dulce de Leche ice cream, that the inhabitants of Buenos Aires believe is the greatest in the world.

Featuring on-location sessions and interviews with:

Adriana Varela: one of the foremost female tango singers in Argentina today, accompanied by 3 guitarists and a bandoneon, evokes the song of the early immigrant tenements in the Rio de la Plata.

El Arranque: a septet who play every Friday in Buenos Aires, and for the last fifteen years have been slowly documenting the music of the golden era of Argentine tango, the 1930s and 40s. Founded by double bass player Ignacio Varchausky, who also runs the organisation Tango Via, they discuss how in contemporary Argentina tango is a potent mirror to reflect on the often turbulent history of the country, and asks difficult questions for today.

Cristobal Repetto: a singer with an international career, has a voice that recalls the earliest days of Tango Cancion, a form popularised across the world by singer Carlos Gardel. He draws on both the urban song as well as the milonga styles that preceded Tango.

Ramiro Gallo: a young tango composer, who with his quintet draws on the music of the past to create a tango sound whose roots are solid but treads a clear path to the future. Especially for World Routes he brings together a 14 piece tango orchestra, which for many is the 'true' sound of the music.

Banning Eyre travels to Argentina to learn about the roots of the tango.

Programme exploring music from around the world

Away from the Europe-centric metropolis of Buenos Aires, the northwest of Argentina is characterised by a history of invasion, where indigenous groups such as the Aymara and Coya were conquered first by Incas from the Altiplano, then by the earliest Spanish conquistadors in the 15th Century. The music of the Humahuaca valley is a mix of pan-pipes and end-blown flutes, frame drums and cow horns, mixed with guitars, accordions and mandolins; songs are sung in Spanish as well as Quechua, and the Virgin Mary is venerated alongside Pachamama.

In the fertile Humahuaca valley Banning meets local musician Tomas Lipan, who tells stories of his childhood embarrassment at eating local foods and playing indigenous instruments, rather than eating spaghetti and playing guitar, and the cultural pressure he felt not to express his indigenous heritage. He sings with immense love of his hometown Purmamarca.

Fortunato Ramos, poet, teacher, restaurant owner plays carnival music with his band in the town of Humahuaca, as well as the spectacularly long horn, the erquencho.

Michaela Chauque is a young quena (end blown flute) player, who draws heavily on the ancestral music, and performs a song about the Pucara de Tilcara, a pre-Incan fortress, as well as singing Coplas from the Tilcara Carnival.

Banning also discovers a mechanical Saint that delivers clockwork benedictions.

Banning Eyre travels to northwest Argentina to hear the music of the Humahuaca valley.

Programme exploring music from around the world