Basque Folk Music

Basque folk music is the traditional music of the Basque Country, spanning the improvised sung poetry of bertsolaritza, the trikitixa diatonic accordion and pandero dance repertory, and older instruments such as the alboka hornpipe and the txalaparta wooden percussion. Sung in Euskara, much of it survived the Franco dictatorship's suppression of Basque language and culture through rural transmission and clandestine performance. The nueva canción movement of the 1960s, led by *Mikel Laboa* and the Ez Dok Amairu collective, recast the traditions in a singer-songwriter idiom, and virtuosi such as the trikitixa player *Kepa Junkera* later carried them onto international stages.