Micaela Chauque

Micaela Chauque (born 15 January 1979) is a Qulla Argentine composer, dancer, coplista and flautist, specializing in the quena and siku. She has been lauded as one of the best interpreters of Andean music in Argentina. She is also a music teacher and luthier.

Background Micaela Chauque was born on 15 January 1979 into a Qulla indigenous community in Finca Santiago, in the Iruya Department of Salta Province, Argentina. She later moved to Tilcara, Jujuy Province, where she grew up.

She was the first indigenous woman from the Quebrada de Humahuaca to be allowed to play the quena, as in indigenous traditions, the instrument is reserved for male players.

She studied Argentine folclore and native dance in Salta and Buenos Aires. She also studied to be a dance teacher, while perfecting her knowledge of the quena, the siku, the charango, the quenacho, and other traditional instruments used in Andean music.

In 2011, she performed three times at Cosquín Festival, as a live flautist for Rata Blanca lead singer Hugo Bistolfi, as the instrumentalist for coplista Mariana Carrizo, and later with singer Rubén Patagonia. Following their success at Cosquín, Bistolfi and Chauque continued to collaborate in a 2011 tour of the Argentine Northwest, and she later featured in Bistolfi's solo album Valles y quebradas.

In 2019, she was awarded the Gardel Award for best female folk album for Jallalla, released in 2018.

In 2022, she starred in the play Memorias del huevo-tiempo, opposite Anita Martínez. The play premiered in Tilcara.

Discography El del Charango (with Jaime Torres), 2001 Jujuy, canto y vida (with Carlos Cabrera), 2002 Crisol: música instrumental andina, 2003 Cuatro Mujeres: cantos de la tierra, 2005 En Vivo: quenas y sikus, 2010 Jallalla, 2018