Marcelo Rodríguez, director of Camerata Porteña: the mission of a composer is to continue evolving

Talk about Astor piazzolla is to refer to a registered trademark, because just by listening to one or two bars of his music you know that it belongs to him. A merit that very few composers in history have been able to achieve, he says Marcelo Rodriguez, founding conductor and pianist of the orchestra Camerata Porteña, which after two concerts in Quito reaches the Sánchez Aguilar Theater for a show in which they will celebrate the centenary of the Argentine composer’s birth.

The Camerata Porteña will celebrate the centenary of Astor Piazzolla with a concert at the Sánchez Aguilar

“It is a great joy to be in front of the public and that the public can enjoy the music live and share these important moments for the person in general”, Expresses Rodríguez in an interview with this newspaper.

The concert, called Piazzolla 100 years, is a journey through the master’s work, from the 50s to the end of the 80s, which includes classics, among which stand out Buenos Aires summer, Andean goodbye and other little known pieces, such as Wave nine or the The sad fat man. “We are going to show the public an enormous range of possibilities of what Piazzolla’s music is with the vision of the Camerata Porteña, which by the way was different, from the orchestration, to what Piazzolla played”, says the musician about the show that is part of a tour that they had been programming long before the pandemic.

It also indicates that new pieces from the Camerata will be added to the repertoire. “Since we began, 35 years ago, we have shown a large number of works by myself and Alejandro Borgo to complete and move forward with the renewal of music, not only of contemporary tango, but of music in general, because we believe that the mission of a composer is to continue evolving”, dice.

Piazzolla’s music innovated the traditional tango in the 20th century with a proposal that mixed the sound of the bandoneon with the electric guitar and other elements that emerged from the jazz. Something that revolutionized even more with the arrival of the Camerata Porteña in 1986, when they incorporated symphonic sounds into Piazzolla’s music, which in this way made them the “true heirs of Piazzolla”.

“When I formed the Camerata Porteña at the request of the council and the encouragement of Piazzolla, there were two basic ideas. One was to spread the Piazzolla work from our point of view; I always felt that his music needed to have a more symphonic flight in its sound. Then there is the other part, which was to show a different vision of Piazzolla’s music, playing works that even he did not play in concert.”, Rodríguez reviews.

The solo musicians that make up the Camerata are professors of the National Symphony Orchestra of Argentina and of the Stable Orchestra of the Colón Theater in Buenos Aires. This is how the guitar is Alexander Borgo; on the violin, Fernando Herman and Claudio Becker; on the viola, Claudio Melone; on the cello, Mario kyrkiris; on the double bass, Ángel Bonura; with the bandoneon, Jorge Rutman; and on the sax, Nicolas Porley.

The concert It is scheduled for this Friday at 20:00, on the Main Hall of the Sánchez Aguilar Theater. The entrance has a cost of $ 20, and it can be acquired through the web page www.teatrosanchezaguilar.org, the application of the theater or ticket office. (I)