For many, still, the coup in Chile in 1973 is in fresh memory and for others the trauma has lived on in the children and grandchildren of those who suffered.

Naomi Larsson Piñeda, a musician and journalist, told me via Twitter messaging about how Chilean families still have a hard time talking about the events in 1973 and the years that followed.

Read also: “Justice Finally Served For 1973 Murder Of Chilean Musician Victor Jara”

Naomi’s mother moved from Chile in 1980 to the United Kingdom and although having traveled to Chile in her youth, it was not until in her adult life that Naomi started reconnecting with her homeland: “I work as a journalist so have spent a lot of time reporting from Chile and learning about its history – as a child, the dictatorship was something that was never really discussed, like in so many Chilean families.”

Read also: “The Violator Is You: Women In Chile Perform A Protest Chant”

This coming Wednesday, October 18, Naomi has organised a night of music, titled ¡Adios General!, in cooperation with Movimientos, to commemorate the decades that have passed since the coup.

Featured bands are Naomi in Blue, Malena Zavala, and Patiño. ¡Adiós General! will celebrate Nuevo Pop Chileno and the songs of Los Prisioneros, Aparato Raro, Los Pinochet Boys and more – the Chilean rock bands who drove the sounds of a new counterculture.”

“The 18 October is also a particularly important day – it was the start of the social uprising in 2019 where millions of Chileans took to the streets to protest the economic and social hangovers of the dictatorship.”
– Naomi Larsson Piñeda

Profits from the event will go to Ecomemoria, a collective planting a forest in the south of Chile with each tree memorialising a victim of the dictatorship.

When: 18 October 2023
Where: the Jago, Dalston (UK)
Tickets: here