Pablo Márquez
“I don’t think that traditional music needs ‘respectability’ to exist and have very high intrinsic value. As Cuchi Leguizamón said, ‘popular song is a synthesis of emotion and wisdom. Its message may be short, but it’s never of lesser quality or less transcendent compared to great works’.”
Guitarist Pablo Márquez, who was born in north-western Argentina in 1967, is equally at home in the traditional music of his native land and his instrument’s classical repertoire from the Renaissance to the present day. Márquez studied guitar with Jorge Martinez Zaráte and Eduardo Fernández, early music with Javier Hinojosa and conducting with Eric Sobzyck. After successes in major competitions including Radio France, Munich, Geneva and the Villa Lobos competition in Brazil, he embarked on a solo career which has led to creative encounters with remarkable musicians.
As decisive influences on his subsequent development Márquez cites his meetings with bandoneonist Dino [...]
“I don’t think that traditional music needs ‘respectability’ to exist and have very high intrinsic value. As Cuchi Leguizamón said, ‘popular song is a synthesis of emotion and wisdom. Its message may be short, but it’s never of lesser quality or less transcendent compared to great works’.”
Guitarist Pablo Márquez, who was born in north-western Argentina in 1967, is equally at home in the traditional music of his native land and his instrument’s classical repertoire from the Renaissance to the present day. Márquez studied guitar with Jorge Martinez Zaráte and Eduardo Fernández, early music with Javier Hinojosa and conducting with Eric Sobzyck. After successes in major competitions including Radio France, Munich, Geneva and the Villa Lobos competition in Brazil, he embarked on a solo career which has led to creative encounters with remarkable musicians.
As decisive influences on his subsequent development Márquez cites his meetings with bandoneonist Dino Saluzzi and the teachings of pianist György Sebök. Márquez is founder of the AlmaViva Ensemble which champions the Latin American chamber music repertoire. He collaborates regularly with new music ensembles including Ensemble InterContemporain. He has worked closely with composers including Luciano Berio, György Kurtág and Mauricio Kagel.
Pablo Márquez’s first album for ECM New Series was Seis libros del Delphín, which presented music by Luys de Narváez, a court musician who served King Philip II of Spain in the early 16th century. The New York Times reviewer wrote: “Pablo Márquez offers 17 of [Narváez’] works here and makes an eloquent case for Narváez’s mastery of counterpoint and sense of the virtuosic”.
In 2015 came El Cuchi bien temperado, an album devoted to the work of a remarkable figure in Argentine music, Gustavo “Cuchi” Leguizamón. Leguizamón (1917-2000) was a composer, pianist, guitarist and poet in the city of Salta where Márquez grew up. For his guitar arrangements of Cuchi’s quintessential zamba form, Pablo Marquez alludes to the formal design of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier and its rigorous exploration of all the key signatures. Reviewers praised the works’ “surprisingly modern, improvisatory feel”.
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