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CONTACT: The IEMEVE Agency:
Visit the Ensemble Director's website |
Link to the agent's Musicians Gallery webpage
IEMEVE, S.L.
|
CONTACT: The IEMEVE Agency:
Visit the Ensemble Director's website |
Link to the agent's Musicians Gallery webpage
IEMEVE, S.L.
GETTING TO KNOW THE ENSAMBLE NUEVO TANGO - CLICK HERE FOR SPANISH VERSION
* extracted from an interview done for The Reporter Magazine, Marbella, Spain, 2000
On the verge of seniority, with a lifetime of achievements, the famous Argentine composer, Astor Piazzolla became house ridden with a broken arm in 1985. He decided to listen to music and chose a cassette someone had given him at a concert one year before. The music, written after his own style, impressed him so much that he had his manager make an appointment with the composer, Fernando Egozcue.
Whether due to sense or sensitivity, intuition or taste, Piazzolla's decision to meet them that day and to give them what he did, has indeed served his legacy well. The Ensamble Nuevo Tango has been able to enhance the Piazzolla heritage with their refined talents that even the musicians in Piazzolla's own bands could not challenge.
"My greatest hope, my dream, is that my work will be played worldwide in 2020, and in 3000".
Astor Piazzolla, composer
(Q): Could you tell us about your background as a group and how the Ensamble Nuevo Tango (ENT) started out?
Ensemble Nuevo Tango (ENT) Fernando (F): Well, I have a traditional classical background from studying at the conservatory in Argentina and later I finished here in Madrid. I studied composition, counterpoint, harmony also with maestros and then later alone. Some of my compositions are outside the Nuevo Tango style, strictly speaking, more classical or contemporary. These pieces are mostly for guitar and some of what I write can be broadly defined as Nuevo Tango, that is the roots are tango with added classical influences. I prefer to think of it as an arranged tango, a classically arranged tango, because composing consists of an idea and the arrangement of the parts which make up the whole.
Ezequiel (E): Officially, you could say that ENT was born in Torrecabrera, Almeria, Spain in 1998. It was there that we had an incredibly enthusiastic response and our first big success, in great part due to the audience made up of English and German tourists. Everyone wanted to buy CDs but we didn't have one! We are a Nuevo Tango group without a bandoneon, which to some is curious. The bandoneon (an accordion like instrument) is traditional in tangos and is sometimes also found in Nuevo Tango. This does not mean that ENT will never play with a bandoneon or invite one as a special guest, but our sound is more chamber music like, orchestral. It's different.
F: Yes, because the original idea was to form a chamber group and that is why we call ourselves 'ensemble'. An ensemble is a group, often of chamber musicians, who play together. The bandoneon might take up too much of a central part because of its typical sound. This would limit the possibility of the other instruments playing with an equal protagonism as they do in chamber music. ENT's offers the opportunity to hear different instruments in their respective parts, alone and together.
Q: Tell us about your relationship with Astor Piazzolla.
F: In 1985, 15 years ago already, Piazzolla played in Buenos Aires in a summer festival. There were throngs of people. When the concert was over I tried to get close - I was 25 at the time - and I saw a gigantic stage with a car at the end. When Piazzolla finished he rushed to the car and I stuck my head and arm through the window (he twists his body and cranes his neck). I shoved a cassette onto his chest a bit roughly and he was startled. There was so much confusion and it all happened so fast. He said, "Whatâs this?" and I answered, "Maestro, listen to it. It's my music". Then, I pulled my head out and the car drove away. A year passed, exactly one year, and then we got a telephone call from Piazzolla's manager. He told us that Piazzolla had listened to the music and wanted to meet us. We couldn't believe it, but true enough we were invited to his home in Buenos Aires, a lovely house. He was 66 years old, a renowned composer, with considerable popularity in Argentina and a whole lifetime of experience. We listened to music and he told us that what we were doing was marvelous. Incredible! While we were there he had us listening to it while he commented. He was an extremely lively and energetic person, moving all the time. He said that he hadn't wanted to go to Europe but in Argentina one could die of anguish. Then he arose, went to his room and came back with a piece of handwritten sheet music called 500 Motivaciones. He said,
"I'd like you to have this as an incentive throughout your life. I hope that it will guide you in whatever you do".
We were awestruck. Then he told us that he would not play this piece again, that he hadn't recorded it and that he had played it in public only once. He was extremely famous at this point; in the 70s he had gained a lot of popularity. At the beginning of the 80s he was beginning to age and with age came veneration. In the 90s he was a super-star in Argentina.
Q: What comes to mind when I say Nuevo Tango, Ensamble Nuevo Tango and Astor Piazzolla?
E: Something non-traditional, unlike the sound most Europeans have come to relate with the tango. Piazzolla broke with this completely and was criticized for it. His works are strange to those who expect the tango sound and get something contemporary. This is why Piazzolla called them "New Tangos". What we have in reality is an evolution, like we have in all genres and styles. The arrangements have changed too and the sound. Compare the sound of an old Piazzolla album and ours. It is very different. Within 10 years itâs possible that the trend of using traditionally classical instruments in Nuevo Tango will have evolved and that there will be many New Tango groups playing tangos with other a-typical instruments.
F: Traditionally we have the violin, the piano, the guitar and the bass. The oboe was not used.
Q: How is your music evolving? Will it become progressively more and more eclectic?
F: Well, I wouldn't exactly use the word eclectic because for me it denotes something cold and decorative. Something uncompromised, which doesn't become involved, unsuffering and what I like to convey with music is feeling, suffering in a musical sense (he laughs). Artistically speaking it is not pain so much as it is emotion, which can be, joy as well. So eclecticism is more of a halfway point, a hybrid, which is not the idea, we want to convey. On the other hand you could say stylistically we are rather eclectic since we do not easily fit into any one clearly defined genre. The genre is often an international mix.
E: Fusion
F: Whether fusion or not, it is undeniable that someone who is interested in music or who studies music today has a tremendous amount of information and stimuli. It is bound to affect you.
E: Today we have rhythms from America, South America, Australia, Africa, all over, that can be heard in every part of the world. They are bound to cause an impact on composers. I think that their impact will be felt more and more.
F: Me too, and we could say that the total sum of their influence is greater than the individual parts. But something remains of that individual part or input which is hard to define. What is nice is that, in spite of all the information which one has, there is something indelible which is maintained in every location, every region, its personality, its identity.
"The paying public is sovereign and their deepest needs are often ignored by the gurus of marketing".
Diego A. Manrique, musical critic for RNE and El Pais.
Q: What is the ideal audience for Nuevo Tango?
E: There is something magic about ENT which captures a broad span of audience, as was well seen last night. At first there were very few people and then, little by little, they started pulling up tables and chairs until it was full. Afterwards, people from all different social, cultural and age groups came to congratulate us. It is always the same. The public responds to what you give them on stage and if you satisfy whatever that enigmatic thing is that they need, they reciprocate with their gratitude and affection
F: I often ask myself what is that "sixth sense" of the audience's that we must touch to make an impact? There's something intangible. They understand when they hear us how the music reflects our own lives, our hopes and dreams, our identity.
E: I agree but I don't think it is something that is intellectualized. For me this was the first time I played in a group where the composer was also present and we played his own pieces. You don't need to explain to anyone when the music has been composed with sincerity and honesty because the emotion shines through and moves people.
Q: You should be proud about having made a video and put up a beautiful web site.
E: Yes. The video was made at the Cuevas de Almanzora in Almeria, Spain. We gave a concert in the castle there which is high up on a hill and he filmed it live. They've built a stage in the mountain and used the landscape as a natural amphitheater. Later he added interviews with us. So, it's an hour long documentary. What is important for us with the web page (www.ensamblenuevotango.com ) is that it be constantly renovated with what we are doing, what we have done, music, everything.
F: Still, in spite of all the web pages in the world, playing live is how music is best transmitted. That's where the energy is that moves the CD, that moves the web page. There is nothing equal to a live concert, nothing. That is where everything important happens, and from where everything else radiates. I am a firm believer in the positive energy that performances create.
