Argentine composer, musician and music producer Nicolás SorínHe walked a long way to transform into one of the most renovating creators of contemporary music. After exploring and learning different instruments, in his adolescence, he was caught by punk. He studied at the legendary Berklee College of Music, in Boston and toured the United States with a Big Band of Jazz. In Europe he worked with Shakira, Alejandro Sanz, Juanes and Jovanotti. He directed orchestras such as The London Session Orchestra, the Mexico Symphony Orchestra and the Henry Mancini Orchestra.
He composed, among others, the soundtracks of the films “Minimum stories”, “The Dog” and “True Truths”, about the life of Estela de Carlotto. In 2018, at the Colón Theater, it led to more than sixty musicians who performed the “Argentum” suite, during the G20 musical gala. A year later, in the current Palacio Libertad (former CCK), he premiered his work “Antarctic Symphony”, composed of his trips to the White Continent. He made presentations dedicated to the great masters of classical music, reinterpreting works by Bach, Stravinsky, Mozart and Strauss. He received several Latin Grammy Awards nominations and won the Clarín, Cóndor and Gardel Awards.
He is married to Lula Bertoldisinger and guitarist of the Banda Eruca Sativa, with whom he has two children, Milo (4) and Julián (9), winner of the South Prize for his role in the movie “The Tommy’s notebook”, directed by his grandfather, the filmmaker Carlos Sorín.
Pisciano, affable and conversationalist, receives news after an essay of “Piazzolla in the Colosseum for Nico Sorín”the tribute to the great artist who will premiere on Tuesday, April 15, at the homonym theater.
News: How did music get to your life?
Nicolás Sorín: With a vertical piano, when I was 4 years old. My father was a melómano and I found out that in the Sorín family there were musicians who played in orchestras. My grandfather played the chelo and Sundays came together to make quintets of Brahms or Schubert. I played the piano before going to school, I returned and played again. It was like a way of doing therapy, a catharsis. Almost like a game.
News: Did you have an eclectic training?
Sorin: Yes, at that time I also went to explore guitar, bass and drums. I remember that I arrived from school and took guitar classes, after drummer with the “bear” Picardi (Rolando, legendary interpreter and drummer teacher). I entered a very punk era and wanted to play like the Ramones. It is a genre that I still love and I think it is very important at an energy level, it is a very alive thing. I had my bands called “violence without reason” and “excrement.” It was a stage of rebellion.
News: How was the punk passage to the prestigious Berklee College of Music?
Sorin: Very abrupt. Berklee is a jazz school and I, no matter how much he had musical knowledge, had no idea what jazz was. I had a John McLaughlin album with Di Meola and Paco de Lucía and for me, that was jazz. In general, Americans usually have a base learned in schools because it is their folklore. But I didn’t, and at one point he played in favor. There I met a teacher who was the trombonist Phil Wilson. One day it called me because I had composed something called “Delirium tango” for Big Band. When I enter his office there was a photo of him, very young, along with Louis Armstrong and Benny Goodman. He sponsored me, took me throughout the United States with his orchestra and made me write. I learned a lot. Part of that was because of a certain irreverence on my side because I did not come from the world of jazz.
News: In which of your activities do you feel like fish in the water?
Sorin: I like all and have different protocols. I think, on the contrary, I always look for where I feel more uncomfortable. I think that comfort and formula make me bad. I try to combine them because mine were always very antagonistic. For example, last year in Niceto I put an orchestra punk with a punk band in front and back thirteen strings. We play the great teachers and reversed the symphony No. 25 of Mozart. People know it because they are hits that have endured and spent the examination of time. That formation was like the Round Mitzvah. It was the first time I joined my two passions and became very organically. People pogo in Mozart and couldn’t believe it.
News: Is it disciplined or chaotic when composing?
Sorin: Disciplined in the sense that I am always thinking about the composition, but very chaotic when it comes to doing it, I look for chaos. Sometimes the accident or the unforeseen takes me to something. I am here, the cat jumps in the piano, touches something and I’m going to look for it. I try to look outside the discipline. But then, when I’m composing, I get up at seven in the morning to finish.
News: How did it occur to you to travel twice to Antarctica and once to the Arctic?
Sorin: In the case of Antarctica, it was an invitation from the National Directorate of Antarctic. I went to write music, with scores and a techladito. There was born the “Antarctic Symphony.” I had an incredible first month, the penguins jumped, the sky was pink, all very Disney and I writing a medium minimalist thing, in the style of Philip Glass (American composer), who perfectly paired with the place. It’s like being on another planet. But one day, raising a house of food, with 30 ° below zero, I grabbed me a paralysis in my arm. It was a nightmare, I was injected with soothing and I spent twenty -three days without sleep. There I left the symphony and managed to compose “Monster”, a topic that refers to when you are about to spend on the other side of madness. Then I could return to Antarctica again, with the arm recovered. I realized that every five years I have to go cracking somewhere to write music (laughs). Last year I was in the Arctic and the North Pole, in a cabin, with a snow motorcycle, in the middle of nowhere, seeing how they talked the moon and the sun.
News: Can you imagine a life without music?
Sorin: Oh! How difficult! I am to listen to very little music, I put a lot of intensity at the time of my work and sometimes, I need silence, that everything goes out to listen again. All my trips are to look for those remote and hostile places, in which silence and blank score appears. It is like a kind of cathartic cleaning where I can find myself. On my last three -week trip to the Puna in tent, I went with a cameraman to document it. I did a similar experiment in the Arctic, and from there came out “Arctic newspaper”, a documentary that I climbed to my networks. I was lucky to meet Anthony Bourdain (chef and TV presenter), be in your program, eating a roast of work and I would like to be able to do something like him reflecting trips and music.
News: What does Astor Piazzolla mean in his life?
Sorin: The first time I heard it, I really saw him. I would be about 13 years old and I saw the electronic octet doing “Libertángo”, in a TV program, I think Italian or French. It is a video that walks with those pastel colors of the time where Gubitsch starts (Tommy, guitarist), with a flourished shirt, mustaches, long hair, the other musicians are adding and when Astor enters, the wig flies. For me it was like seeing Black Sabbath or Deep Purple. My rocker and music imprint left my head. Sometimes I think, how can it be that this music exists? How can it be that someone has occurred to someone? It’s so personal, so weird, so great. So listening to it was really a shock.
News: Thinking here, when he acted on Luna Park, they threw coins.
Sorin: I think it was unfairly criticized. My thesis, of all this, is that it is not necessary to come from tango to touch Piazzolla. When we played in the former CCK, I invited him to Pipi Piazzolla (Daniel, grandson of Astor) and said: Subime or get my finger, I will not lose my friendship with you. Astor’s music has another quality, one closes his eyes and it is impossible not to imagine here, in the center of Buenos Aires, with his groups and buildings. But it has happened to me to be playing in Itabira, a small town in Brazil, where perhaps few people know who Piazzolla is and people begin to moisten their eyes when they hear “goodbye nonino”, which is like a hymn.
News: What do you think of the new most popular musical currents such as rap, trap or cumbia?
Sorin: There is good and bad music in all genres. I cannot tell you that there is one that I don’t like because it would be a lie. For example, Rosalia (Spanish singer and composer), was flirting with the reggaeton. In general it is a genre that is frowned upon, but she, through her lyrics, has raised the rod. I think it is not a gender problem, but of the artist and whether or not to seek excellence.
News: What is the opinion about the controversy and the tweets between President Milei and some interpreters?
Sorin: It seems almost tragicomic that someone with a country with so many problems, is dedicating their time to that. To hit young people, mostly women, it’s sad.
