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Music of Ecuador
Panpipe (siku) and charango music of the altiplano, huayno, Afro-Peruvian landó and festejo, Ecuadorian pasillo, Chilean nueva canción.
Sung and searched in Spanish, Quechua. The YouTube button above can run your search in that language.
Roots and traditions
Folk instruments
Cununo: a percussion instrument similar to a conga drum Bombos Bandolin: a string instrument similar to a mandolin Pinkillu: a wind instrument similar to a wooden recorder. Native to the Quichua people in the Napo province
Popular music
Ecuadorian Rock
Rock music came to Ecuador in the midst of military dictatorship in the 1960s. Within the context of political culture deeply shaped by Catholicism, rock music was considered to be a dangerous movement that seduced the youth. To left-leaning factions, rock was regarded as an expression of cultural imperialism that corrupts national popular culture. Consequently, groups such as the Catholic Church, the police, and government institutions denounced Ecuadorian rock music following its arrival. Several mestizo-bands in Ecuador made use of indigenous musical elements in rock music since the 1990s. Rocola Bacalao integrated Andean rhythms and made in their song-texts references to emblematic rural towns, such as Pujilí in Cotopaxi. Sal y Mileto and Casería de Lagartos coined the genre of new Ecuadorian Rock. Nevertheless, in the 1980s and the early 1990s the rhythm of the social as expressed in Ecuadorian rock was characterized by hopelessness and resistance or even resignation against repression. With the emergence of a powerful indigenous movement, the rhythm changed.
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Playing now
What Ecuador is listening to in 2026
Articles
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country: Ecuador in its front matter.
Live radio
Radio from Ecuador
Music only, no news or talk. Stations that play the local tradition come first, then the most listened. They play in the corner of the page.
Station directory by Radio Browser Streams come from each station's own server.