The government partitioned the Colombian music style vallenato to UNESCO’s cultural heritage list, the president announced wednesday.
The Colombian government partitioned the traditional music genre vallenato from the Colombian Caribbean coast to UNESCO’s List of Intangible Cultural Heritage, President Juan Manuel Santos told the newspaper El Tiempo Wednesday.
The annual “Festival of the Vallenato Legend” opened in the city Valledupar Tuesday night. Here Santos underlined, that “the government will do everything in its power” to get vallenato on the intangible cultural heritage list, El Tiempo reported.
According to the president, the partition was filed with the Urgent Safeguarding Committee of UNESCO on March 20, and the decision will be reached at the organization’s meeting next year.
Vallenato, which Santos reminded was one of the late Nobel Price winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ favorite music styles, has been on Colombia’s intangible cultural heritage list since last November. Santos told the newspaper that he was confident vallenato would be inscribed on the UNESCO list.
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The traditional music style primarily comes from Colombia’s Caribbean region and dates back to the early 1900s.
The popular folk music was basically born from the influence of different expressions: local songs of dairy farmers, the use of local instruments such as the gaita and maracas, as well as the influence by European instruments piano and accordion.
Vallenato was traditionally considered music of the lower class but has gradually penetrated up the social rank.
The annual festival in Valledupar is held every year and was first held in 1968.
Sources
- Colombia postula la música vallenata como patrimonio de la humanidad (El Tiempo)
- Colombia postula ante Unesco música vallenata como patrimonio humanidad (El Caracol)
