La Violeta

Just finished listening to Radio 3's first installment of a very touching, very delicate biography of Violeta Parra, which will be running all week.
It concluded with Violeta's arrival to Santiago,in the forties, when she had to perform in small restaurants to gather what little pay she could. And most of all, after a life playing, performing and reflecting on tradicional chilean rural folklore, she had to adapt to the music people wanted to hear in the cities. Tango. Ranchera. Fox-trot. And so on. And of course, as so many musicians before and after her, she had to wonder why she was playing music from places so distant, written by people so different from her. It's from doubts such as these that some of the greatest musical masterpieces have been created. And it scares me a little to think that i'll never have to wonder about these things, not having a defined place i could say my culture comes from.
Ah, but i digress.