There are no linear stories and that of Axt It is of Hegelian stroke. Because it looks a lot like a dialectical process, where ideas and phenomena face a contradiction – thesis and antithesis – that is finally resolved in a superior synthesis, promoting progress. Between coincidences, causalities, corsi and ricorsi the life of this musician follows an ascending course. Born in Villa Ballester, self -taught began to compose and orchestrate, he was a pianist of the Colón Theater, lived Cordoba adventures at the immense hotel El Castillo de Valle Hermoso, toured Peñas in Salta and Jujuy, and ended up living in Vienna, almost 13 years ago. Now it is in Buenos Aires; He traveled to accompany the interpretation of his work on the way to La Peña through the National Youth Orchestra San Martín, under the direction of Erik Luján Berman. In July it was presented in the cycle of great concerts of the Faculty of Law and in the National Auditorium of the Libertad Palace. “On the way to Peña is important because through this work my musical language is established in the field of symphonic music,” says Cristian. After listening to the concert, in the later talk, his life story was medulla.
News: From Buenos Aires Conurbano to the cradle of Schubert and Strauss. Let’s start with his Italian grandfather, Beniamino (Benjamin) Santo Napolitano.
Cristian Axt: He was Calabrés and had the dream of being a musician. Impossible, given family economic conditions. But it touched me fulfill it. The grandfather did to fourth grade, the rat was done and with the friends they were going to swim. They were from Paese, from the mountain. He learned to swim in the sea. That would save his life. Because in the Second War, Marina touched him and assigned him to a torpedo submarine by the allies who sank into the Mediterranean. He swam throughout the night, was saved and also a partner who did not know how to swim. He hit the neck, he passed out, and took him to the ground. There were the Americans – who had torpedled them – and took them prisoners. They were in Africa imprisoned for a long time, to the point that he saved, committed suicide and the war ended. From my grandfather I learned that you do not know if what you do, mocking the norm, it will once save your life. With this he also taught me “never give up, ever. You don’t know when the war will end,” he said, “you have to be alive.”
News: His last name is German and in Villa Ballester the community is numerous …
Axt: Yes. But my last name is from Germans who emigrated to Russia, deceived, towards the Volga, at the end of the 18th century. There thousands died of cold, they had to build homes under the earth. They were attacked by the Mongols, Tartars … In the end they built a nation, they were Lutheran or Catholics and with the communist revolution they had to go because they did not want to live under the regime … My grandparents on that side were born in Russia, but later, when emigrating, they made their homeland in Entre Ríos.
News: I imagine that these ancestors, with such dramatic lives, leave genetic traces and exacerbate sensitivity. You told me that this is not studied …
Axt: As is, it comes with one. When they rooted in Argentina, my Italian grandfather worked a single lung and the other was always sick, although he made prefabricated houses. The doctor told the Tano that he couldn’t make efforts. That a kiosk will be bought. He did it. But soon the corner was bought in front, built a two -story house for the family, another in Maschwitz engineer … it was so generous. And the kiosk became a general bouquet warehouse in Ballester, which for me was paradise. I spent playing it there.
News: Why did you abandon the secondary school?
Axt: I started studying music just at 14 and that age there were boys who already gave concerts. An immigrant from Calabria taught me Solfeo; He had been a cornist. Then I took some piano kinds. But I kept just because I was never a good student under a teacher’s tutelage. I am better on my own. I started with a rock band with my friends from Ballester. I listened to classical music from a very young age. Also Queen albums, Beatles, Cacho Tirao. When my grandfather charged Italian retirement, he bought an engraver. I wanted to be a technician, I armed radios, transmitters … In the vocational test I answered everything to get technical. But my dad knew that I was going to be a musician.
News: What a certainty!
Axt: One day, I with three years giving steps between dad and mom, we spend in front of the door of the Colón Theater, the entrance of artists by Cerrito, and Dad told Mom “Cristian is going to work because he is going to be a musician.” My mom left a laugh … Dad told me when I had started studying music because she never wanted to influence me.
News: And how was the rock pass to classical music?
Axt: Already with the radio recorder at home, Dad found in a street container, a bag with classical music cassettes. La Traviata, Rigoletto, Paganini violin concert, for Litz piano … there was everything. I remember having played in the first cassette and entered a state of ecstasy so great that, the next day, I threw all the music at home.
News: How did you enter Columbus?
Axt: I met a girl, first concertino, first violinist of the Colón Theater. And I didn’t walk with little ones, I started writing a violin and piano sonata, so that we touched it together. With her the theater infiltrated (laughs) and we started a courtship.
News: And how does it become a pianist for ballet essays?
Axt: I loved seeing ballet and I looked in the yellow guide dance studies to offer me as a pianist. I called a public phone number and a girl, ballet teacher, from a cell phone. I explained that I wanted to accompany, that it did not matter to do it for free, and the communication was cut. I tried to call several times, my coins ended and said “it was.” Time passed and gave piano classes to a wealthy family. They invited me to the daughter’s marriage and we went with my girlfriend; They located us at the table of those who are not relatives and there was the ballet teacher! Chance, causality, he told me “You started on Monday.” And I started in that School of San Andrés -Cerca de Ballester- where people from the Columbus attended, including Edgardo Traban, the first stable ballet dancer of the Colón Theater. Over time he began to teach and many times I was his pianist. I wanted to resume the contact and yesterday I found it in the corner of the house! Edgardo is now a colon teacher. And one invited me to play in one of his classes.
News: To his thirty -peak he decided to leave for Europe. Because?
Axt: I wanted to try that stage and asked for a license on the Colon. First I went to Italy and I had an invitation to be Ballet pianist in Vienna. It was not easy, the German Viennese is always working, always busy. It does not integrate foreigners.
News: Soon I was going to start in the world of musical production, audio engineering, mixing, mastering … was it also self -taught?
Axt: When I wanted to improve the quality of my own works, I warned that the conditions were not very good. And in Austria the economic situation allowed me to buy a professional instrumental, the best software and computers to process audios. With things at home, for proof and error, investigating and with tutorials I learned. From here the restlessness of producing another type of music, the crossover, transverse music. For example, synthesize film music with pop harmonies. To do that, there are virtual orchestras that had to be programmed …
News: And so his record label Waves Affaire was born.
Axt: I decided the name, the logo and started in my room. Then I associated with a Top, a Romanian Hungarian who speaks Spanish. I showed him everything he had done, he knew that he wanted to have a record company and we signed a contract. And we started producing together.
News: As a producer, he organized the most important concert of the Italian Embassy season in Vienna, to present the Piazzolla qr album of the revolutionary quintet.
Axt: I met Sebastián Pruzak, the quintet violinist in Buenos Aires. They had won a Latin Grammy for their “revolutionary” album with an American producer. After talking to my partner and would accept, recorded in Buenos Aires and then we made the mixture and the art of cover in Vienna. We present them at the embassy, in the fabulous Metternich Palace. I’m sure we’re going to win the Grammy again.
News: Family, friends and homeland, are they surprised?
Axt: Everything I built here and everything I built in Europe does not have to be divorced. I was creating a platform that allows you to connect with people from here, give it a chance and give it to me. I always knew he was Argentine. But I had never realized that I was so Argentine!
