>> Claudia Morales: Buenos Aires born pianist, composer, and arranger, Pablo Ziegler, has traveled the world as a soloist, with his trio, quartet, and as a guest artist of orchestras around the globe. Also known for his role as a pianist of Maestro Astor Piazzolla's quintet 10 years before retirement, Pablo Ziegler is currently a leader of Nuevo Tango, a fusion of tango, jazz, and European music art. My name is Claudia Morales, and I'm so delighted to have Maestro Pablo Ziegler here sitting next to me. >> Pablo Ziegler: Exactly. >> Claudia Morales: Pablo, welcome to the Library. >> Pablo Ziegler: Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm very glad to be here. >> Claudia Morales: Pablo, you have prepared a very special program for us, and when I say special, I really mean it, because this is our first public program after two years of virtual programming. So please tell us, what are we going to listen tonight? >> Pablo Ziegler: You are going to listen tonight, all the program, all the pieces that I recorded many years ago, but with that CD, we got, finally, the American Grammy in the Latin Jazz category. That morning, I was very happy, because usually, the Latin jazz was going to all the people around the Caribbean Sea, you know? But for the first time, [inaudible], this is like an award to Argentina, especially to Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires is the capital of tango. The tango music belongs to Buenos Aires. The rest is folk music. As the tango was born in Buenos Aires, I was very happy for that, that day. Now, the Grammy, the American Grammy, is including this music in the Latin Jazz category. >> Claudia Morales: Well, that was one of my questions, and now that you said that, what did it mean to you? >> Pablo Ziegler: It means just what I said. I'm very proud for my country that, finally, the musicians from Argentina, they come in person and they work, music works, to the recording academy, and to be -- sometimes to get some award like that, no? >> Claudia Morales: Yeah. >> Pablo Ziegler: For me. I mean, I'm very glad because it's made my music [inaudible]. And that program is, we are going to play that program tonight. >> Claudia Morales: Well, that's very special. >> Pablo Ziegler: Exactly. >> Claudia Morales: It's super special, and talking about the program, you have pieces such as La Fundición and Milonga Del Adiós included in the program. Why did you pick those pieces for tonight? >> Pablo Ziegler: Well, if you see the program in the CD. That is, I was replicating that Grammy CD, you know. Some pieces of Piazzolla. Some other pieces from my compositions, that's it. >> Claudia Morales: And the ones that you picked from Piazzolla to play tonight, are those -- do they have any special meaning for you? >> Pablo Ziegler: Yeah, and meaning for many, many people, because probably, those tunes are the most famous Piazzolla tunes like Libertango, like Fuga y Misterio, which is an incredible fugue that he wrote for the famous operetta "Maria de Buenos Aires" which is kind of a small opera, but -- and he wrote that fugue, which is a very unusual fugue. Fugue is also from Bach or from many classical musicians. It's like four bars, just motif and start the counterpart with that. But this is 12 bars, proposition. It's crazy, and he did it fantastic. And the people, tonight, they have the chance to hear that, no? I want to explain. I want to try to explain to the audience this kind of musical problem that Astor was passing with all his talent. >> Claudia Morales: Now that you said that, I must ask, can you describe your experience working with Maestro Piazzolla? How was it? >> Pablo Ziegler: It was incredible. From the very first moment, I was not expecting that Piazzolla call me, because I was playing kind of, at that moment, I had a trio, just trio, but playing classical music and jazz. In one TV program, I played the Grieg Piano Concerto with a trio completely [laughs]. I was very young, very energetic, and that was probably one of -- recently, the people started to know me because of this guy doing this, because usually, you have the jazz trio, that's it, playing American music. I start to play Grieg, Schumann, different arrangement, just music, you know? >> Claudia Morales: Just wow, I can't imagine what that must've meant to you at the moment, and how was the rigor of working with Maestro Piazzolla at that time? >> Pablo Ziegler: When he called me in our first encounter, I asked him why are you calling me to play with you, because I am not a tango musician? And he said, "For that, I am calling you, because I need people with a different mind, you know? Not a mirror." But I have a very good skills, classical skills, and very good jazz skills, and that's very necessary to play this music, because the phrases, all the piano parts from Piazzolla are really, really complicated. And he has, in the past, very good classical pianists or sometimes othere with prodigious technical skills, no? >> Claudia Morales: And I read that he gave you a huge score for you to learn in a pretty short period of time. Is that right? >> Pablo Ziegler: Yeah, it was like this amount of music. When I started to -- but this is crazy. In 20 days, I have to like learn to play three or four piano concertos, something like that. It was day and night practicing, practicing, practicing. And finally, our encounter was the first rehearsal. That went in 1978, 1978. I remember it was the final of the world-wide soccer in Argentina. Argentina and Holland, and finally, Argentina beat Holland. We find it really funny situation, and we was playing in a very small theater in one of the very commercial streets that Buenos Aires calls Florida. But finally, after our first rehearsal, he was very happy. He was at least happy. >> Claudia Morales: Did you have, at any point, any doubts of like joining him because of the rigor, and? >> Pablo Ziegler: No. No-no. When I see that I have to study fingering, everything, you know? >> Claudia Morales: Right, right, right. >> Pablo Ziegler: But I did it, and he was -- our commitment was for 10 years. He stopped because after 10 years, he told us, "We have to stop because I am going to have heart surgery." And that moment we stopped. I start two years after that. I was preparing my own composition. He knows that. So, sometimes I play some melody, and he played a melody with an audience, mainly me, and that was fantastic for me. Like saying without words, go ahead. Go-ahead. Go on. >> Claudia Morales: Go on, yeah. Would you say that your music has some -- is your music like a follow up? Are you inspired by Piazzolla? Did you start writing based on what you learned from your experience with him? >> Pablo Ziegler: Yeah. Basically what I learned from him and basically what I learned from classical music, because being a teenager, I started my career. By the age of 4, I entered the Music Conservatory of Buenos Aires. Alberto Williams was the director. That guy was incredible. He was a student from Fauré. For another time, he was at the head of the Paris Conservatory. We captured all that music knowledge from Europe through this conservatory. And then, starting from my 4 years old until my 15 years old, or when I received my diploma, no, as a professor of music. >> Claudia Morales: So, you said 4 years old. >> Pablo Ziegler: Four. >> Claudia Morales: And how come? So, are your parents musicians? >> Pablo Ziegler: Yeah, because I'm in my Italian house, they have the music, like a side in the dinner salad. >> Claudia Morales: Ah, [foreign language spoken].. >> Pablo Ziegler: [inaudible], and my mother and just, oh, we have to do something with this. And I remember, I was really little and just -- one of the conservatory -- one of the professors from that conservatory was very close to my house. And I went to that house each week, a couple of times each week during 10, eight years. >> Claudia Morales: Wow. When I listen to your music, to me, it evokes Buenos Aires. >> Pablo Ziegler: Oh, yeah, of course. >> Claudia Morales: I assume that's intentional. Are you inspired by Buenos Aires? >> Pablo Ziegler: I remember that Piazzolla was encouraging me to be a composer. He said, "You have to think. Please go."[inaudible] >> Claudia Morales: Turn up the radio. >> Pablo Ziegler: Turn up the radio. Just try to listen your radio, your past, your fears, your everything is in your mind. Try to go there. That is the way to compose something original. And that, I did from that time to now. I still working. In that way, I was composing -- I composed a lot of different music, no? Each time, my music is very different than others. I'm not repeating sequences, you know? I try to avoid that, no? Always I like the foundation, the foundry. It was a big factory to melt metals , you know, and even music. That is fusion idea, no? Sometimes the title suggests to me what I have to do, what I have to compose in what way, you know? >> Claudia Morales: How would you describe Nuevo Tango composition? How is it different from other kinds of music composition? >> Pablo Ziegler: Well, the first reference what happened from the traditional time, the way frame the traditional tango to the new tango. Astor started his career playing in one of the most famous traditional tango bands. Anibal Troilo was very famous at that time. But the tango, the traditional tango, is like steps, one, two, three, four, one -- that's the rhythm, and you can see in the steps. You can see the tango dancer dancing in that way, you know? And Piazzolla start to reinventing different rhythms, and his most famous rhythm is I call 3-3-2, one-two-three, one-two-three, one-two. One-two-three, one-two-three, one-two. That way sounds like more European, no, or more Bar-- . He was admiring the music from Béla Bartók, and I went to Béla Bartók's CDs or whatever, and I can hear that rhythm and that kind of phrases that Piazzolla captured from Béla Bartók, no? Béla Bartók was a classical musician, but he's including in the composition, a lot folk from Romania, from Hungary. That is the way it sound more like Hungarian dances. In that way Piazzolla was transformative. When I started my own composition, I was looking, also, okay, first we have to change something in the rhythm. Harmonies are harmonies or what is the way, and I was experimenting with rhythms that are four or that are paired, no? I started to write some compositions in 7, 7/4, 9/4, which is really innovation at that time. Could that really work if you put the right accent, the right articulation? You say, oh, what is this, you know? You feel still that kind of adventure belong to Buenos Aires music. >> Claudia Morales: You can really feel it. it comes across very clearly, and this segues to my next question. You mentioned that when you first started Maestro Piazzolla, you were a classical pianist. >> Pablo Ziegler: Classical and jazz, at the same time. >> Claudia Morales: Right, classical and jazz. >> Pablo Ziegler: Because when I started, when I received my diploma as a professor of music, I won the first prize, and the gold medal. That kind of allowed me to continue in the conservatory preparing with an incredible professor, all the program for the piano competitions. After two years, I was practicing Schumann, Grieg, all the, you know, competitions, all those beautiful concepts. This guy died. I was desperate. So, it is really now what? But at the same time, one of my friends very close to my house, bring me one of those 78 rpm disks, pretty heavy, with one of the jazz compositions from the United States. I was in love with that. At that moment, he was asking me, "Pablo, are you ready to play with us, because we are starting a new jazz band?" Yes, I said. In that way, I was learning jazz, playing with those guys. >> Claudia Morales: You know, it's so interesting you said that. >> Pablo Ziegler: It changed my career, because through that, I was starting to compose music that was a trigger to start with my own composition, because, of course, I was composing first by ear, and suddenly it was, I have to start a composition. And it was five years, starting a composition with different, incredible, very good teachers in Buenos Aires, too. >> Claudia Morales: You said that, because when I talked to many musicians who are now playing jazz, that's how they learned about jazz, just like. At the time somebody gave them, at that time, a cassette tape. >> Pablo Ziegler: No. I remember. It was passing from one jazz orchestra to another jazz orchestra, playing kind of Dixieland at that time, and one of the guys bring me one of the Jelly Roll Morton music books. I said, oh, this is fantastic. That was the way to learn to play jazz, and finally, this day was improvising the jazz music, no? >> Claudia Morales: But you were not a Tangero at the time? >> Pablo Ziegler: No. >> Claudia Morales: No. >> Pablo Ziegler: No, I was not, but my father was a violinist. He was playing violin in some tango orchestra when he was really young. After that, he stopped, and he created a real estate company, just one [inaudible]. >> Claudia Morales: Talking about that. You just came, not too long ago, from Japan. >> Pablo Ziegler: Yeah. >> Claudia Morales: You are all over the place. You play in the United States, in Argentina, Japan,. >> Pablo Ziegler: Europe. >> Claudia Morales: Europe. >> Pablo Ziegler: No, because I start in the very beginning. I remember I created my first CD with Sony Music with all my compositions, and it was a quartet without bandoneon, because I was playing with the best, and I don't want to replicate that exactly. And I sent that cassette to one of the managers, Piazzolla's managers, here in the United States, and this guy was yes, absolutely. Just yes, this is fantastic. It's fantastic, it's not sounding like a Piazzolla. It sounds like you. And I start to travel from Argentina to some venues or festivals in the United States for a couple of years. After that, I had a proposition from the foreign office for the general Argentinian Foreign Office. We are in the way to -- we'd like you and your musicians to start a worldwide tour through the embassies, but you have to play bandoneon. He was right. >> Claudia Morales: What year was that? >> Pablo Ziegler: 1990 something, 92 or 93, because that CD was 1990, with Sony Music Argentina, woth that quartet, and I received this proposition from this foreign office to do this worldwide tour, which I did it. I did auditions with different famous bandoneon players with one of my tunes, no? And finally, Mr. Marconi was this like a crazy virtuoso. He was playing with me during one year, playing in the United States, playing in Europe, playing in Japan, play different places in the world. At the same time was that famous Falklands wars in Argentina. It was the same kind of, you know? >> Claudia Morales: You mentioned that -- >> Pablo Ziegler: No, the Falklands war was before that, and the foreign officers, they say we have to share this to the rest of world our music, our spirit. It was a very conflicted situation, no? >> Claudia Morales: Now you mentioned that you have groups in different countries. >> Pablo Ziegler: Exactly. I created a group here in the United States. The second one was in Europe. The third one is in Japan. I started that way because it was very inconvenient to ask for work visas for the old musicians, and I tried to. This is the best way to play the music. Whatever. Always, as musicians, they did the same. They travel and tried to catch jazz players in Europe or in Japan that they play very beautiful. This is the way to move around the world that's not as crazy. >> Claudia Morales: Yeah, it's too much. What are you working on right now? Do you have any special projects that you're working on? What's next for you? >> Pablo Ziegler: I'm just in the middle of the -- I received a commission from Houston Metropolitan Opera to compose an opera, and I did it. I finished all 27 songs for the opera, and we are in the process to the approval for the second draft. You know that they're very happy with that, but we have to move some, you know, the dramatic -- some changes always happen, huh, and we are waiting for the premier. When is it going to -- the premier? Probably 2023, probably. I hope. >> Claudia Morales: Is that your first opera? >> Pablo Ziegler: Yes. It's my first opera. When I was living in Buenos Aires, I create a lot of ideas, a lot of musicals with my music. Musicals, movie music, whatever. I have very good experience writing songs. For that reason, I said yes when Houston Opera -- because they were very enthusiastic about my book that wrote for Argentina that's related to our history, no? And they were very happy with that and the libretist is an American guy, no? He did all the libretto -- written in English. After that, he was translating to Spanish, you know, and was working with the Spanish version. Because apparently, right now, all the opera houses in the United States, opera houses, are asking for Spanish-language opera. Not surprisingly, as we know that right now, in the United States, there are around 90 million Spanish people. It's a marketing problem. It's marketing things. >> Claudia Morales: In the opera that you said, are you also including the bandoneon? >> Pablo Ziegler: Yeah, of course. Yeah. The guy that is going to play tonight, is my -- for me, is one of the best in the world, and I hope that he can play, because opera need a lot of preparation. I don't know if he is going to be available for all those days. But just in case, I have to think. I have to think of a backup, you know? Just in case. >> Claudia Morales: Exciting. >> Pablo Ziegler: Yeah-yeah, because also, in the opera, all the roles, the first role, sometimes something happens. Each one of the roles, they are hard to backup for each one, you know, for the tenor, baritone. That is the way to work. >> Claudia Morales: How popular, or not so much popular, is learning bandoneon in Argentina right now? >> Pablo Ziegler: Yeah, there's a lot of young guys playing bandoneon very well, and the bandoneon start in Germany because of one guy, Arnold -- I don't know. I can't remember. He created the first bandoneon, you know, for the wars to use like harmonium for the masses, you know? And some German guy came to the Buenos Aires port, to all the bordellos around the port, and that instrument start to be part of the tango music. Because in the very beginning, the tango was starting with just flute, drums, piano, and bass. That's it. No bandoneon. Bandoneon appear maybe in the beginning of the 20th century, or the beginning of the 20th century. >> Claudia Morales: Are there any female bandoneon players nowadays? >> Pablo Ziegler: Yeah. There's a lot. >> Claudia Morales: Oh, yeah? >> Pablo Ziegler: Especially Asian girls. >> Claudia Morales: Oh, really? >> Pablo Ziegler: Yeah, from Korea, from Japan. [inaudible]. I don't know from Argentinia, but probably, yes. >> Claudia Morales: That's interesting. So, I'm looking forward to your opera. That's going to be so exciting to see. >> Pablo Ziegler: Yeah. >> Claudia Morales: I look forward to that, and Mr. Ziegler, what would you say to new young musicians coming up in this new DNA in the music world? What feedback would you give to them? >> Pablo Ziegler: I tried to encourage young people, that is like a mission. First I start with my wife, when she was very young, and she's a very, very incredible piano player, and she was learning. You have to pass, one by one, you know, just to -- my way to do this music, yeah? But [inaudible] and other guys, very talented in Buenos Aires creating something different. I don't know yet, but probably, yes. It's going to happen. The same happens with jazz music, with the start in the bordellos of New Orleans, no? And the tango has the same kind of starting places, in the bordellos around Buenos Aires port. Now it's all over the world like the jazz was all over the world, which is pretty different. Recently, I was reading a book from one of the critics over here in Buenos Aires how Piazzolla was -- what's happening with the jazz style and the Piazzolla style, and the Piazzolla style very personal, really personal. He was not improviser. He was written everything. But for that reason, probably, he called me. When I started the first rehearsal, he said, you know, that but play that rhythm in your way. For that reason, I was calling you. And I started to experiment in different ways to put some more jazz inside his music, no? That's what I did from 1987 to now, huh? When Piazzolla finally died because of stroke in Europe July 4th, Independence Day in America, 1992. And yeah, we have catch the torch and run. >> Claudia Morales: Continue. >> Pablo Ziegler: Continue. That's it. >> Claudia Morales: Mr. Ziegler, it's been a pleasure talking to you this morning. >> Pablo Ziegler: Thank you. >> Claudia Morales: Thank you so much for spending the morning with us. >> Pablo Ziegler: Okay. >> Claudia Morales: We look forward to tonight's concert. >> Pablo Ziegler: Okay. >> Claudia Morales: And for the ones watching from home, please tune into Pablo Ziegler Jazz Tango Trio streaming on our platforms pretty soon. Thank you.