During the signing of his National Reconstruction Plan, President José Antonio Kast concluded his remarks by stating: “The number one task is to generate employment, everything else is just ‘music’.” The statement, unfortunate in itself and reminiscent of a similar phrase uttered by then-President Ricardo Lagos, is symptomatic in the current context, in which a worrying lack of interest from the government in the country’s cultural and musical activity has been observed. In his few weeks in office, we have noticed a cut of more than 3% in the portfolio, managed by a minister who believes there is “excessive spending on culture“, and we have also been informed of the halting of the works of Stage 2 of the GAM, which was to house one of the largest and most modern halls of shows and concerts in Latin America.

As music researchers, we wish to express our deep concern regarding this message, in which the arts appear as secondary or superfluous activities. When state funding for culture is perceived as wasteful by the authorities, the State cannot implement cultural policies that recognize its value in the integral development of society. We reject this message not only because music, far from being at odds with job creation, is a significant source of employment —although also fragile and precarious— for many people and institutions in our country. We also do this because music offers spaces for meeting and sociability; it enables channels of expression, reactivation of social memory, emotional connection and enjoyment that are fundamental for social well-being and for full citizenship; and because it constitutes an invaluable national heritage and an expression of identity that should be at the center of any development model.

The challenges facing the country demand authorities capable of understanding the place that music and culture occupy in collective life. Reducing them to a minor issue not only reveals a mistaken diagnosis: it reveals a worrying distance from that which gives symbolic and material support to a democratic society.

Board of Directors of the Chilean Society of Musicology

Millennium Nucleus in Musical and Sound Cultures (CMUS / NCS 2025_065)

Millennium Nucleus in Current Practices of Classical Music (Animupa / NCS2025_12)