Horacio "Chango" Spasiuk (born on September 23, 1968 in Apóstoles, Misiones

Misiones Province

Misiones is one of the 23 provinces of Argentina, located in the northeastern corner of the country in the Mesopotamiсa region. It is surrounded by Paraguay to the northwest, Brazil to the north, east and south, and Corrientes Province of Argentina to the southwest.- History :The province was...

) is an Argentine

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

 chamamé

Chamamé

Chamamé is a folk music genre from the Argentine Northeast, Mesopotamia and in the south of Brazil. Paraná, Santa Catarina, Rio Grande do Sul and Mato Grosso do Sul....

 musician and accordion

Accordion

The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....

 player.

Of Ukrainian

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

 grandparents, El Chango had a strong Polka

Polka

The polka is a Central European dance and also a genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas. It originated in the middle of the 19th century in Bohemia...

 music influence from his early days; Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...

an musical influences were also already present in the chamamé music of the region. He had his first accordion at age 12, which he played at parties, weddings and other events with his father and uncle.

Early years

A musical-talent TV

Talent show

A talent show is an event where participants perform their talent or talents of acting, singing, dancing, acrobatics, drumming, martial arts, playing an instrument, and other activities to showcase a unique form of talent, sometimes for a reward, trophy or prize...

 show that travelled around small towns opened the door for Spasiuk to perform at provincial

Provinces of Argentina

Argentina is subdivided into twenty-three provinces and one autonomous city...

 festivals. When he finished high school, he went to Posadas, capital of Misiones, to study anthropology, but soon after dropped out. Nevertheless, there he was exposed to other musical genres, and met pianist Norberto Ramos, who convinced him to go to Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...

 to study with him. Spasiuk then played in small places in Buenos Aires as well as in some festivals around the country, and even received an invitation to participate of the Eurolatina festival in the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

.

In 1989 El Chango was invited to play in Cosquín

Cosquín, Córdoba

Cosquín is a small town in the , located about 52 km from the city of Córdoba, and 783 km from Buenos Aires. It has about 19,000 inhabitants as of the...

, perhaps the most important folkloric music festival in Argentina, where he received the "Consecration" prize. After Cosquín he moved to Buenos Aires, where he recorded his first album, eponymously named Chango Spasiuk.

Spasiuk gained some popularity not only among folk and world music audiences but, given his modern style, also with rock and pop fans. He worked as a guest musician with bands like Divididos

Divididos

Divididos is an Argentine rock band.The band was formed in 1988 after the death of Luca Prodan and the consequent dissolution of the band Sumo...

 and Cienfuegos, but continued recording his own material. Favourable reviews of the "La Ponzoña" album reached Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, and El Chango was invited to play at the Montreal International Jazz Festival.

In 2000 he returned to his roots recording Polcas de mi tierra live at parties and weddings in the small towns of Misiones with his accordion. Since then he has being touring around the world with the Chango Spasiuk Orchestra, and has edited an international recompilation of his work in 2003.

Spasiuk has been championed in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 by world music

World music

World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...

 journalists, for many of whom chamamé is a previously unknown form of music. The late BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 radio presenter Charlie Gillett

Charlie Gillett

Charlie Gillett , was a British radio presenter, musicologist and writer, mainly on rock and roll and other forms of popular music...

 was a prominent fan in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 and included El Changos tracks on his compilations and playlists http://www.charliegillett.com/rotm.php?date=december03.

Awards

• 2006 named Best Folklore Artist, by the Carlos Gardel awards, for his work Tarefero de mis Pagos
• 2006 Tarefero de mis Pagos nominated for Best Folk Album by the 7th Annual Latin Grammy Awards
  Latin Grammy Awards
  A Latin Grammy Award is an accolade by the Latin Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry. Unlike the regular Grammy Award which primarily honors music produced in the United States, the Latin Grammy honors works produced anywhere around the...
  
  
• 2005 received the Konex Award
  Konex Award
  Konex Foundation awards, or simple Konex awards are cultural awards from the Konex Foundation to Argentine cultural personalities.Created in 1980, where conceived as a way to reward the Argentine personalities and institutions of different fields, as well as to stimulate the beginners.Even though...
  
   for best Argentine male Folklore singer of the decade
• 2005 winner of the Newcomer BBC World Music Awards
  World music (Awards)
  Various awards have been presented in recent years to musical artists for their contributions to the genre of world music. This article provides a partial list of these awards and their recipients.- BBC Radio 3 Awards for World Music :...
  
  
• 2001 nominated for Best Folklore Artist, by the Carlos Gardel awards, for his work "Chamamé crudo".
• 2000 Chamamé crudo named Best Folklore Record of the Year by Rolling Stone
  Rolling Stone
  Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
  
  -Argentina.
• 2000 named Best Folklore Artist, by the Carlos Gardel awards, for his work Polcas de mi tierra.
• 1999 Polcas de mi tierra named Folklore Record of the Year, by Clarín
  Clarín (newspaper)
  Clarín is the largest newspaper in Argentina, published by the Grupo Clarín media group. It was founded by Roberto Noble on 28 August 1945. It is politically centrist but popularly understood to oppose the Kirchner government...
  
  .
• 1997 La Ponzoña awarded as Best Instrumental Record - Asociación de Cronistas del Espectáculo (ACE).
• 1993 Bailemos y... nominated for Best Instrumental Record - Asociación de Cronistas del Espectáculo (ACE).
• 1989 "Premio Consagración" - Festival Nacional de Folklore, Cosquín
  Cosquin
  Cosquin may refer toa place* Cosquín, Córdoba, a small town in Argentinaa surname* Emmanuel Cosquin , French folklorist....
  
  , Córdoba.

Discography

• Chango Spasiuk (1989)
• Contrastes (1990)
• Bailemos y... (1992)
• La ponzoña (1996)
• Polcas de mi tierra (1999)
• Chamamé crudo (2001)
• The Charm of chamamé (2003 recompilation, Germany)
• Tarefero de mis Pagos (2004)
• Pynandi - Los Descalzos (2008)

External links

• Official site
• Profile at the BBC
  BBC
  The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
  
  
• Biography
• Interview La Nación
  La Nación
  La Nación is an Argentine daily newspaper. The country's leading conservative paper, the centrist Clarín is its main competitor. It is the only newspaper in Argentina still published in broadsheet format.-Overview:...
  
  magazine
• The Charm of Chamamé
• Funkhaus Europa(German)