Patricia García Gil (Cornell University): “Voices of Influence: Exploring Power Dynamics in the Conservation of Musical Heritage in Colonial Latin America”

Patricia García Gil’s research sheds light on the often overlooked role of women like María Antonia Palacios, a Black enslaved woman in Chile, in preserving Spanish and Latin American music during the colonial period. While religious music dominated in colonial Latin America—much like religious paintings and other art forms used to reinforce colonial power—Palacios’s hand-copied music collection offers a rare glimpse into secular compositions, including pieces for the fortepiano. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, this relatively new instrument made its way to the colonies alongside printed music, increasing access to education and the rise of a new socio-cultural class, sometimes mixed-race, who hosted cultural events known as “tertulias.” However, as we consider the overall obscurity of secular music, questions about the roles of race, gender, and class arise: it wasn’t until well into the 19th century that indigenous identities were given a voice. García Gil presents a musical program that could very well have been heard at a colonial tertulia. It encompasses music that was fashionable in colonial society, though conservative by European standards, reflecting the values of the Spanish and Italian traditions imported from the colonizing nation.