The ensemble created and directed by Marcelo Delgado is dedicated to contemporary classical music and pays attention to young Argentine composers.
The “Compañía Oblicua” is celebrating twenty years. This is an unusual achievement for an independent ensemble focused on contemporary classical music. Throughout this time, in contrast to the circumstances of Argentina and its culture, the ensemble created and directed by Marcelo Delgado has presented original, diverse, and engaging repertoires, featuring a vast number of world premieres by both national and international composers, thus significantly contributing to broadening the sonic horizons of curious audiences and occupying a pivotal place in the realm of contemporary music.
As part of the celebrations, the Teatro Colón Experimental Center (CETC) will host the Compañía Oblicua, which will present two concerts. On Saturday the 7th at 8 PM, the program will include works by Argentine composers specially composed for this ensemble. On Sunday the 8th at 5 PM, music from Escrito sobre escrito sobre escrito, the Oblique Company’s album featuring works by Delgado, recently released by Virtuoso Records, will be showcased.
“This is another year of work, which also carries the symbolic weight of a round number, and that is gratifying for us,” Delgado comments at the beginning of the conversation with Página/12. “It’s gratifying for this kind of family spirit that has developed around the Company, whose members have changed very little in 20 years,” highlights the composer and conductor. “Sergio Catalán, Elena Buchbinder, and Fabio Loverso (flute, violin, and cello, respectively) have been part of the ensemble since its foundation; Diego Ruiz (piano) has been with us for eighteen years, and Gonzalo Pérez Terranova (percussion) for fifteen. Griselda Giannini (violin) and Lucía Lalanne (soprano) have also been with us for many years,” Delgado details, noting that for the CETC celebration, he has also invited Pablo Boltshauser (guitar), Mariano Malamud (viola), Matías Cadoni (double bass), and Daniela Cervetto (percussion), as well as the remarkable mezzo-soprano Cecilia Pastorino, musicians closely connected in both spirit and body to the Compañía Oblicua and its history.
“There have been many adventures that we have shared together in this absolutely independent ensemble, which works and commits itself from conviction. We have been paid when there was money to be paid, and when there was none, we didn’t get paid. And that hasn’t interfered with our concept as a group and our approach to music,” emphasizes Delgado. “Many times I think that this ensemble, above all, is an affectionate construction that relates to resisting and persisting in a country like ours, where support for artistic production—when it has existed—has aimed more at entertainment,” the director continues.
“We know that the musical expressions we explore are rather peripheral in relation to mainstream tastes, but that does not make them less significant. On the contrary, they are a necessary reserve of thought, reflection on art, its reception, and its modes of circulation. But mind you, we’ve chosen this periphery as our natural space because it’s where we can do things in a personal way, with complete independence. I mean, it isn’t just a space of resistance; it’s also, and above all, a space of joy,” assures Delgado.
Compositions by José Luis Garabito, Agustina Crespo, Patricia Martínez, Juan Carlos Tolosa, and Jorge Chikiar make up the program for Saturday. “There are two works that we have already been performing. One is Garavito’s piece, a very talented young composer. It’s called Lo que queda de las ruinas and creates soundscapes based on his reading of Las ruinas circulares by Borges. The other is Patricia Martínez’s work, Tenue brillantez, based on a Gregorian chant,” the director comments. “Then we will have the world premiere of works that the composers generously dedicated to us. Agustina Crespo composed Enésima vez, a very bright and transparent piece; Juan Carlos Tolosa, a great composer, wrote Tres poemas de Roxana Carrizo, which are very beautiful; and Jorge Chiquiar, a true virtuoso of electronic processing, dedicated Persistir, Resistir, Resonar to us,” recounts Delgado, who will conduct his own music on Sunday, which is featured in Escrito sobre escrito sobre escrito, the fourth album of the Compañía Oblicua.
“We will present five of the six works that are on the album,” the conductor clarifies. “Except for Colores congelados (2010), these are works from the last decade. There are two that are ‘Gandinian’, like Escrito sobre escrito sobre escrito, where I write about Eusebius, which is Gandini writing about Schumann, and Cénit nocturno, a tribute to Gerardo that premiered last year at the CETC. Then there is Ruido urbano, based on rhythm and pulse, and Ex R&C, which also has a strong pulsation but in a clearer harmonic context. In short, there will be two concerts that are very different from each other and highly representative of the variety that converges in the concept of contemporary music,” he anticipates.
Beyond joys and resistances, Delgado highlights two “notable merits” of the Oblique Company in these first twenty years of work. “On one hand, we bet on a discipline of weekly rehearsals, whether there are concerts in sight or not, and on the other, at some point we stopped thinking and performing that canonical repertoire, on which we were trained and that we love—by Salvatore Sciarrino, Franco Donatoni, György Ligeti, and others—to open up a space that contains the vast production of local composers,” says the composer and director. The “local” of the Compañía Oblicua is completed with the idea of a concert as a present ritual. “The concert is also a place of resistance, which is essential to defend with the bodies of the artists and the bodies of those who listen. An intimate and complicity-filled space that, in times of algorithms, among other uncertainties, needs to be cultivated,” the director defines.
https://www.pagina12.com.ar/765426-la-compania-oblicua-cumple-20-anos-y-lo-celebra-con-dos-conc