Argentinean composer Bruno Tambascio will introduce University of Jordan (UJ) students to technological tools for creating music at a workshop on Monday, and encourage aspiring musicians on campus.
“The workshop at UJ is going to be about the use of new technologies in composition. Times have changed a lot [during] the past years. Musicians must be able to have their own recording studio at home,” Tambascio told The Jordan Times.
“I think the use of these [tools] by musicians shouldn’t make them forget what is important about theoretical knowledge and techniques. I think it’s just one more tool to use in a very practical and immediate way,” he added.
Tambascio aims to share his experience with university students and to support those who aspire to a musical career.
“[There are] many things that you can combine [through music]. People who [have] not yet initiated their careers, this will show how useful [technology in music] is, and how enjoyable it is, with all the new tools that can be used,” he said.
These days, musicians have to master technology, and be a “one-man band”, the composer emphasised.
Tambascio says he was inspired to start a career in music by his father, stage director Gustavo Tambascio, who is also in Amman.
For Gustavo, music “helps one understand the universe”.
“In my very early childhood, I started as an actor. I was six years old; my sister had a theatre company in Argentina, so I [knew] the stage and the theatre [became] my own house,” the older Tambascio said.
“My mother was a pianist; she introduced me to music and made me attend the opera house… I was captured by... opera; what a unique special type of artistic event the opera is!”
Captivated by the costumes, the drama and the orchestra, Gustavo started attending every opera performance he could.
In 1981, he began his career as a stage director, and he has staged over 120 shows around the world, in Argentina, the US, Spain, Italy, Russia and France, he said.
“You feel overwhelmed. You need to put all the elements together, it looks like a gigantic task which requires 80 people — a gigantic orchestra, singers, and scenery, sets, costumes... you are responsible for everything that happens on stage,” he told The Jordan Times.
“There are very terrible moments when you doubt everything, your talent… You never know, because when you are young, you think when you’re old you’ll be more quiet, relaxed, but you’re always nervous, the anxiety never goes.”
Gustavo said opera “pushes” artists to find their emotions and express them in a well-structured performance.
“[Artists] have to do their job with the utmost concentration, their mind has to be put into what they are doing; they can’t be playing or reciting or singing and thinking of something else, they have to be there.
“It’s a unique experience; to feel that you have to give to the audience and that you receive feedback from them, with all your senses and with all your heart on stage.”
Music can build society and bring people together, he stressed.
“Music can be a way to solve things… One thing the theatre can be deep in is feelings and thoughts… Music is a universal language, to understand, express, read, I think it’s important and I wish Jordanians start an operatic activity,” Gustavo said.
By Suzanna Goussous
