Reinventing Traditions

This chapter examines the contemporary redefinition of Galician folk music that has occurred since the transition to democracy and the establishment of Galician autonomy, and the role contemporary Galician folk music has played in the construction of a modern Galician cultural identity in the global age. Since the mid-1970s the recovery of Galician musical and cultural heritage has gone hand-in-hand, somewhat paradoxically, with innovation, transformation, and hybridization. In parallel, contemporary Galician folk music has become one of the key cultural expressions of a modern Galician identity that is to a large extent based in the distinctness and richness of its traditional music, even if this genre has undergone a complex process of hybridization entailing the merging of old and new forms, rural and urban manifestations, and local and global trends.

This redefinition of Galician folk music has developed in parallel to the major political and social changes occurring in Galicia during this period, and the significant cultural developments in literature, audio-visual arts, rock music, and fashion, which have all played a key role in the process of collective self-discovery and self-construction. Two major historical events have governed these developments: the process of cultural “normalization” as a result of the establishment of Galician political autonomy; and the globalization of the cultural industries with Galicia's response to the new cultural climate and the economic currents of our global age. The result of these processes has allowed the redefinition of Galician folk music as an organic entity that maintains strong and direct links with its own past, but is clearly heading towards new horizons.