A musical portrait of Mercedes Sosa

Persecuted, exiled and inevitably loved everywhere despite it all, the legendary Argentine singer Mercedes Sosa made the Latin American dictators of the 1970s tremble. Her songs speak of injustice, defiance, freedom, love and hope. Sosa was known as the “voice of the voiceless ones” and she personified the call for democracy and justice of an entire continent. She took on the task of uniting different worlds not only through politics but also through art by blurring the traditional boundaries between the tango of the cities, Latin American folklore and Argentinian rock and pop that was flourishing at the time. Christian Bakanic, accordionist with the band folksmilch, has been a well-known figure at the MusikTheater an der Wien since he contributed to María de Buenos Aires. In him and his fiery Trio Infernal, Paula Barembuem has found the perfect collaborators for bringing this music and its timeless messages back to life. Together, they paint musical pictures from Argentina that shift masterfully and unconventionally between the soundworlds of jazz, funk & drum ’n’ bass.