 This is Dennis McMahon and welcome to Positively Vermont. And today, we are going to be speaking with Hector Del Curto and Pablo Esti Caliba about the Stowe Tangle Music Festival, which is coming up in beautiful Stowe, Vermont, August 18, 19, and 20. Welcome Hector and Pablo. Thank you, Dennis. Very nice to see you again. And I just wanted to tell you that the festival has already started a week ago because we have our students here that they are preparing for the big dates on the 18th, 19th, and 20th. That's great. Now, can you tell us first a little bit about yourself? Well, let me introduce Pablo. Pablo Estigarribia is our guest artist together with the trio of Victor Blauazen, Horacio Cawarcos, and Pablo Estigarribia. And he's also a faculty member. So he's coaching the students, the piano students. And he can tell you a little bit about what his experience is with this music and his career. So... Excellent. Well, I gotta say I'm one of those lucky guys that got to play with some tango legends back in Buenos Aires. I lived there and I was born and raised there. And at one point I started coming to the United States a little more frequently. And I ended up living in New York for a few years. That's when we came close with Hector. And we started taking upon the mission of bringing the true tango artists of tango history to the States to teach and to communicate what Argentine tango is really about. And I can't tell you the smiles we've seen from American and musicians all over the world to get to experience this, you know, this transmission of Argentine heritage firsthand. That's great. Well, tell us Hector a little bit about the festival, how long it's been in operation and what's going to be happening in the next few days. Mm-hmm, sure. So the festival started in 2014. So this is our ninth year. We are preparing a big celebration party for the 10th anniversary of the festival. So that will be next year. But this year we have students from all over the world. We have students from Japan, from Korea, from Canada, from US, from Argentina. And the idea of the festival is to coach musicians that are not tango musicians and some of them are already tango musicians. But we bring the maestros, the people who have been in contact with the, some of them were part of the golden age of tango. And they come here and they, it's the way that you give the artistry of tango to students, it's not through a book, it's not through a manual. It's by performing, by getting coached by being exposed to these tango legends. So that's the mission of the South Tango Music Festival. And so we have been working for a week with bandoneon players. I will show you later what the bandoneon is. I know you know it, but for those people who haven't been exposed to these instruments, and I'm a bandoneon player, I'm from Argentina as well. And then Pablo was coaching the pianists and today is when all the string players arrive. So a typical tango orchestra has strings like violin, viola, cello, and double bass. It has a piano and it has this instrument called the bandoneon. And this year we have about 10 bandoneon players that are going to be joining the orchestra. We're expecting quite a big orchestra this year. It's going to be a big orchestra. So we have to make everybody play together and that's a big task that we take every year upon us and we have the help of all the effort that these students put into learning this art form. And you're going to have a competition to the bandoneon, correct? Yes, we have the Chebandoneon Competition and that will be on Friday. There are three finalists that were selected already and they are here and they will perform. They perform as a soloist and they also perform with the orchestra. And then the judges will decide who is the winner for this year. As I always say, competitions are a way of having people looking after other people to improve the level of playing. And that's our mission here to improve the level of bandoneon playing. In Argentina you have many bandoneon players, many teachers, but in US we don't have that many. So we have created and that's our mission with the competition as well. That's great. Could you just give us an idea of how the festival is going to proceed? That's starting on the 18th and continuing through the 19th and the 20th and give us an idea of the location and also the program that's going to be going on. We have a few different places, but all the information will be at www.cdc.org and you will find all the information on the venues, but one of the venues is top notch. We have a Milonga classes in there. We have Milongas in here. This is a beautiful venue and that is with passes. So people will buy passes, but unfortunately those passes have been sold out for a while. So what you can still, I believe there are not many left, but there might be a few left. It's the concert that's Spurspeak and that will be on the 19th and at the Spurspeak Performing Arts Center. That's when we have the orchestra, the big orchestra about 30 musicians and also there is a Milonga where people will be dancing to tango. So that's on Saturday and I hope everybody will come and have an experience and exposure to this beautiful music from Argentina. I just gotta add that that concert is really exciting. That's the culmination of two weeks of very hard work. Like a tango retreat, you know, hanging out with this tango legends and it's very exciting to see how much work can be done in only two weeks. Amazing. Now you're gonna have a major tango legend with you. Does he tell us about him? Well, the tango legend, one of them, because Horacio Cawargo is also a tango legend and he's a bass player that had played with many of the famous orchestras in Argentina. And but Victor Lovagen is a legend, not only as a bandoneon player, but he is also a composer. And he was the arranger to many of these famous orchestras in Argentina. So it doesn't get better than that. He's still active, very active in a project called Escuela de Tango, Emilio Valcarce. That's in Argentina. It's a program that students also from all over the world come for two years and the train to perform tango. So they do it in two years. We do it in two weeks. It's, imagine how intense this workshop, sorry, in here. But Victor Lovagen is one of those artists that you have to look at, listen to and learn. And we learn a lot, even myself and Pablo, who both are professional musicians, every day we learn with somebody like Victor Lovagen. Victor's one of those guys that, even though you don't know him, you know his work because he's behind a lot of iconic recordings and you've probably heard him play, even though you don't know it. It's very exciting to have someone like that among us. He was already active when he was 14 years old in the 50s and he never looked back. He's still recording, he's still composing. It's quite an inspiration to have someone like that around. I looked him up on Spotify and came across some of his albums and shared a few of them and it's amazing material. Yes, and he is actually, I shouldn't say, I don't say this, okay, but he's 88 years old and he plays like when he was 35. It's insane. It's really an inspiration in many sense of the word. That's amazing. Give us some ideas, some of the other faculty members you have or performers you're going to have during the festival. Sure, my quintet is always the artists in residence and that's Gustavo Casenave, on piano, Pedro Giraud on double bass, Sammy Mardinian on violin, and Gisuo Concello. And we also will have some performances by my son, Santiago del Curto, who's 15 years old, but he's already an accomplished clarinet player. And we have Pablo, we have Horacio Cabarcos, we have Gisermo Rubino, who is one of the younger generations of musicians, but a very experienced violin player that is also an educator and we are very happy to have him this year. That's great. Besides that, yeah, we have dancers. I was just gonna ask you about the dance workshops. Tell us about that. Yeah, we know that when we say tango, people are expecting to see dancers. Every year we bring two couples that come to dance with us. And this year will be Miriam and Leonardo and Giovanna and Gisermo. And these are very well-known tango dancers and Miriam was the star of Forever Tango. And they are going to give some classes as well as perform at Spruce Peak. And people will have the chance to see what real Argentine tango it's about because many people know tango as a part of ballroom dancing and it's very far from that way of dancing tango, the Argentinian tango. Ballroom tango is more about figures and choreographies and also people dance away from each other. And many times you will see the rose on their mouth. We don't have any of that. And people dance very close and it's a coordination of the bodies like no other. And that's what people will be able to see at Spruce Peak. One of the things that I see here on the program is up close with the maestros. Tell us about that. That will be a conversation and where people can ask questions but we also tell the story of each one of these maestros. And it's quite an interesting story because these orchestras have been very, very active in the 40s and in the 50s. And then there was a revival around the 90s that grew a lot until what is today 2023. So tango has been around for 100 and almost 150 years. And these people are part of that history and it's really a great opportunity to be able to be close to them and ask questions and get to know what really happened in the history of tango. And I see also you're gonna have workshops on musicality. Tell us what that's about. Yes, so in order to be able to dance or to enjoy the music as a listener, it's important to know, there's a lot of information to grasp in the music of tango. There are many layers and having a musicality workshop helps you to be able to appreciate the art in a much better way. It's like going to a museum and you know nothing about the art. You will cruise through the paintings or any piece of art and enjoy it as a view, but you really don't know much of what's going on. But if you have an insight of what is the art about, the art form about or what the story is behind the painting, then you have a much greater appreciation and enjoyment of the art. So this is the same with our music. Well, in addition to the classes and the hands-on work, tell us about these afternoon melongas that's gonna be part of this. Yes, so the afternoon melongas are, as I said before, people know tango through the dance mainly. There were shows in that made tango famous all over the world like Tango Argentino or Forever Tango. And one of the ways that you experience tango is listening, but the other way that you experience tango is by dancing. Tango is a social dance. So it's not just what happens on top of the stage, it's also what happens as a community. There is a big community of tango dancers all over the world. And these melongas give the opportunity to mingle, to have a fun dancing, and also to have the connection with the musicians, which is very rare these days. I think it's important that that experience, you know, that melonga experience, that it's, you know, get together, dance tango, that's a very important part of tango heritage that still happens in Argentina every single day. And, you know, that's part of what we do for tango in Buenos Aires and to be able to share that with people in the United States, to share that experience, I think it's very important because, you know, many musicians today even were exposed to tango by dancing first. So I think it's a very powerful tool and it's a very important part of our heritage. And I'm just happy that this is happening in such a beautiful venue as well. Wonderful. Tell us about the concert that's going to be taking place. Actually first tell us about the orchestra, the orchestra. Yes, so the orchestra will be, it's part of the whole two weeks that we are working here the part of the result of these two weeks. And the idea of having the maestros join the students or the students joining the maestros to experience the music firsthand. And the orchestra prepares for these two weeks very intensively and I just mentioned something that happened this week. There are many students, not many, but a few students that come here with the idea that we will give them a chart and they will have the melody and some few chords and they will just gather with other musicians and everybody will play the same thing. This is nothing like that. This is very, very, very serious orchestra that we have amazing arrangements from Pablo Stiarrivia from Victor Lozien, arrangements from the very famous orchestras like Aniva Troilo, Osvaldo Pugliese. And we coach these musicians very intensively and we perform with the orchestra. So this orchestra is the highest level orchestra that you will find around the world. And it's all with musicians that are not only, they are not amateur musicians. They are professional musicians that are experiencing tango at this time, but they know how to play their instruments. So the level of musicianship is very high and the orchestra sounds amazing. If you go to the website, stotango.org, you will hear some samples of it. You'll give us an idea of how many, I know you're recording this and you're at the festival and the festival itself is gonna be the 18th, 19th, and 20th, but tell us how many people are participating now and how many people either as guests or concert bowlers or performers are involved in this tango festival. Yeah, musicians, we have about, we keep the number to a limit because we don't want to not pay attention to each one of them. So we have about, I would say 30 musicians or maybe a little bit more. And besides the guest artists and the quintet, my quintet and in terms of audience, we expect about 500 people every year because that's the capacity of Spruce Peak and the capacity of the venues that we have in Stowe. That's why we get the passes sold out very quickly. And so next year, if you didn't get one for this year, next year, check the website earlier and you might be able to enjoy the whole package of the festival. And now you're up there now. And can you tell us some of the, maybe the experiences that you've encountered with people and musicians and maybe newcomers and old-timers and people just starting and people, very experienced. Give us an idea of the atmosphere that's going on up there now. Yeah, so we have many of the musicians that come every year and some of them had to skip some years because of work and we have new musicians every year. So the musicians who were here before are able to help the ones that came this year only. And these musicians are from, as I said before, Japan, Korea, Argentina, we have from all over the world. And so it's a great atmosphere because this is not including the competition. It's not a competition where people look to beat each other but they look to help each other. So the students listen to each other and the participants listen to each other and make constructive criticism and they make progress. And also the musicians that are performing, they have the opportunity to all be in a soloist at some point, to experience the being a soloist. And in terms of the people that participate the dancers, there is a big community in Stowe itself and of tango dancers, but there's also people from Montreal, people from Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York. So there are a lot of tango dancers that come and experience the festival. And this is one of the largest in the world, isn't it? Absolutely. The largest in North America, correct? Absolutely, yes, not sure, yeah. That's great. And you said before that you might give us a little sample of the music. Are you ready to do that now? We are almost ready. So you just give me, actually, do you want to play something for Dennis? I could, definitely. And I'm going to get my bandoneon. Excellent, excellent. So I'm going to move the image to the piano. All right. Hopefully you can see it. Okay. Wow, wow, that's absolutely amazing. Is that one of your own compositions or who wrote that? This was a piece composed by the great master Orazio Salgan, which is kind of like our Astor Piazzolla for tango pianist. Yeah, I got to say it's very exciting to get to share time with people. To get to share time with people here. They come from the best schools, her technique is insane. And the fact that they get the opportunity to be trained by people like Victor, it's, I mean, sometimes I think if this was jazz instead of tango, that would be like hanging out like with Miles Davis, you know, it will be something like that. So when we were talking about the atmosphere here, I think appreciation is a word that comes to mind as well. Everybody seems so grateful to have the opportunity to have someone like that. I mean, he's 88 years old. He jumped into a plane, came to Vermont, and he's playing and hanging out with people that love tango and want to experience that firsthand, which is pretty amazing to me. While we're waiting, I just want to say, because of the time that the festival is going to be going on August 18th, 19th, and 20th, one of the largest tango music festivals in the world, we're gonna publish the website. So if anyone wants information, they can go there. And meanwhile, let's hear from Hector, who is an Emmy Award winner. Actually, I have to correct you, it's a Grammy. Oh, Grammy, Grammy, yeah, it's kind of. You're a Grammy. A Grammy, I'll say it's been kind of busy with all this Grammy. I used to make a mistake and say Latin Grammy Award. No, you are a Grammy Award winner. Well, Pablo is a Latin Grammy Award winner. And so, yeah, we have a few Grammys in this festival. That's wonderful. Yeah, so I wanted to show you a little bit of this instrument. This instrument is called the bandoneon. And this is not mine. There is a collection of bandoneons in the room behind that will be donated this year to the Orquesta Escuela in Buenos Aires. And this instrument was invented in Germany to replace the organ in processions. And it went all the way to Buenos Aires in Argentina. And became the voice of tango. So this is an instrument that is not an accordion. It's called bandoneon. And it sounds a little bit like this. We will play, what should we play? What do you feel like? Maybe. There is something very that nobody knows. Okay, so you're going for the anthem, huh? Yes, well, one of the anthems. The one in D minor or the one in G minor? The one in D minor. Okay, you got it. Absolutely marvelous. That is fantastic. Thank you very much. And that is just a sample of what people can see and participate in at the Stoltango Music Festival. That's a wonderful way to conclude. And I want to thank you both for being here and for performing and say hello to Jesus for us and Santiago and all the other people involved. And this is just a great way to spend days learning about this wonderful art form and meet these wonderful performance. This is Dennis McMahon. We've been speaking about the Stoltango Music Festival taking place August 18, 19, and 20 in Stolverman. My guests have been Hector Del Proto and Pablo Estigariba, La Libia, who will be organizing and performing and running things up there. And they're gonna need a big rest, I think, but that is just a beautiful piece of work. Thank you, Dennis. Thank you so much. And it's always a pleasure to share this time with you and hopefully we'll see you around. Thank you. And this is Dennis McMahon for Positively Vermont. Thank you for watching and most of all, listening.