Cristián Alvear is a guitarist living in Santiago, Chile. In 2019 he released solo album seis pequeñas piezas para guitarra in Zoomin’ Night. Zhu Wenbo did an interview with him about his music, life and this new album.
Q: Could you tell us something about yourself? Where did you from? When did you start to play guitar? And when did you start to play this kind of music?
A: I started when I was 12 years old. That year, for my birthday, my father gave me an electric guitar and since then I never stopped playing the instrument. A few years later, when I was 17, I met guitarist Mauricio Carrasco who became my first classical guitar teacher, I learned a lot with him. Then, on 2000, I came to Santiago to study with Luis Orlandini at Universidad de Chile. I also did my master’s degree with him. On 2013 I was getting really bored of contemporary music and my few incursions with improvisation proved to be not as interesting as I was expecting. So, when I met Nicolás Carrasco from whom I borrowed some scores, everything took a somewhat drastic turn: among those was Antoine Beuger’s ’24 petites préludes pour la guitare” and a wide range of new music unraveled before me. Since then I’ve been incredibly lucky, I’ve been able to travel and meet a lot of people to work with.
Q: I found that, mostly you play composition works in live or studio. Maybe only the duo set with Seijiro Murayama is improvisation. Why composition is so important to you?
A: I’m classically trained so, as you may imagine, repertoire has been crucial on my formation as a musician, it’s basically what I learned to do. I like repertoire because it present certain problems that you need to figure how to solve, how to do to make it sound as you want. Also, you play different styles of music, from renaissance pieces to experimental music, so if you’re willing to, you can learn a lot.
Q: Who’s composition works do you play for most?
A: It depends, It’s something that is always changing. Nevertheless, for the last two years, I’ve been playing a lot of Takemitsu’s guitar music. I’ve been also playing a lot of music written by Chilean composers Nicolás Carrasco and Santiago Astaburuaga.
Q: I found that you always play other composer’s work (but not your own work), solo, or introduce them to other musicians to share. Do you always exchanges score with the other musicians/composers?
A: Recently I’ve been playing my music more often. As for these exchanges, yes, I do that often, I think it’s an important aspect of this community of musicians.
Q: Will you ask for some personal explain from these composers? Or, maybe you just try to understand them in your own way?
A: It’s difficult to generalize on this because it depends entirely on the score and the composer. In any case, I usually try to do things on my own at first, to develop a personal perspective regarding the piece I’m studying, only after that I feel I can start a dialogue with the composer and maybe send him or her a preliminary recording.
Q: Will you make any special focus or miss point while play other composer’s works?
A: It depends on the piece.
Q: This cassette work is your own composition. To me I feel that, it is much more in a traditional way. Or maybe we could say, it is much more a musician based work, focus on notes (maybe we don’t say melody), but also the skill of guitar playing. How do you think about it? Would you like another musician to play your work?
A: With this piece I wanted to widen the scope of the possibilities of iteration, tuning and permutations. There’s no focus on melody whatsoever but on timbre and resonance. I don’t know about skill because I just do what it feels natural on the guitar to do. As for someone else playing my music, I’d love that to happen, in fact, Nick Ashwood is trying “pieza para guitarra afinada”.
Q: And I also want to ask about Taku Sugimoto. You have played with him before, and you always played and shared his work in internet. As a guitarist, how do you think about his work or his playing? Please share us some personal views or experience.
A: Talking, working, playing and drinking with Taku has been a tremendous influence for me. He’s not only a great musician but also a generous and kind person, always open to talk, to share and listen. I feel very lucky to be able to work with him.
Q: And finally, please tell about Nicolás Carrasco and Santiago Astaburuaga, the cassette dedicated to. Who are them? Why are them? Maybe you could also introduce us about the Chile / Latin America scene.
A: Both are great Chilean composers, I admire their work very very much. I’ve been working with them for quite some time now and, without their help, I wouldn’t be able to do what I do, that’s why the piece is dedicated to both.
Chilean scene it’s still quite small, although there are some venues and some festivals for experimental music. In fact, I help curate one of these festivals, it’s called Relincha Festival and it takes place in southern Chile.. There’s also Tsonami, a very big festival, but I don’t find it particularly interesting.
As for the importance of Nicolás and Santiago in this scene, I would say it’s paramount: not only they contribute with their music but with a way of thinking and reflecting upon this practice of music making.
在出版 seis pequeñas piezas para guitarra 之后，朱文博和智利吉他手 Cristián Alvear进行了一次邮件采访。
可以先讲讲你自己吗？你的背景是怎样的？你什么时候开始弹吉他的，又是从什么时候开始演奏这种音乐的？
我12岁时开始弹吉他。那一年我父亲给了我一把电吉他作为生日礼物，之后我就没有停下来演奏这种乐器。几年后，我17岁的时候，我遇到了吉他手Mauricio Carrasco，他成为我的第一个古典吉他老师，我从他那里学到了很多。之后，2000年，我去了圣地亚哥的智利大学，跟随Luis Orlandini学习，他也是我的硕士导师。2013年的时候，我对当代音乐非常的厌倦，而对即兴的尝试也证明它并不如我期待的那样有趣。于是当我遇到Nicolás Carrasco的时候，事情发生了强烈的转折：我从他那里借了一些乐谱，其中有Antoine Beuger的 “24 petites préludes pour la guitare”，一片新音乐的世界就此展开了。之后我很幸运，我有机会四处旅行，和很多人见面合作。
我发现，你在录音室与现场大多是演奏作曲，或许只有和村山政二郎的二重奏是即兴吧。为什么作曲对你是如此的重要？
我是有过古典音乐训练的，所以就像你想象的那样，节目对于我作为一个乐手而言是很重要的，这是我基本学到的。我喜欢节目，因为它带来了明确的问题需要你来琢磨如何解决，如何让它听起来如你所愿。此外你会演奏不同形式的音乐，从文艺复兴时期的作品到实验音乐，所以如果你愿意的话，你可以学到很多。
谁的作曲是你演奏最多的？
要看情况，总是会变。不过在过去两年里，我弹了很多武满彻的吉他曲。我也演奏很多智利作曲家Nicolás Carrasco 和Santiago Astaburuaga的作品。
我发现你总是演其他作曲家的作品（而非你自己的作品），有时是独奏，有时是把这些作品介绍给其他乐手一起来演。你总会和其他乐手/作曲家交换乐谱吗？
最近我更多是演自己的音乐。对于交换，是的，我经常这样做。我想这是这类乐手群体间的一种重要风貌。
对于这些作品，你会从作曲家那边要到一些个人的解释吗？还是你只是用你自己的方式来理解它们？
很难对此进行概括，因为它完全取决于乐谱与作曲家。不过，我通常会先尝试自己做些什么，对于我正在研究的作品发展出一种个人观点，只有在我感觉我可以开始与作曲家进行对话之后，我可能会给他/她一份初步的录音。
在演奏其他作曲家的作品的时候，你会特别关注或者忽视哪些方面吗？
那要看作品了。
这张磁带收录的是你自己的作曲作品。我的感觉是，它更接近一种传统的方式。或者我们可以这么讲，这更多是一个以乐手为基础的作品，关注于音符（或许不是旋律），但也同样关注于吉他的演奏技巧。你是怎么看待的？你希望有其他乐手来演奏你的作品吗？
对于这个作品，我希望拓展重复、音准、序列的可能性。关注点在于音色与共鸣，而非任何旋律的东西。我没有考虑技巧，我只是很自然地来做适合吉他的事。至于其他人来演奏我的作品，我很乐意能够发生。事实上Nick Ashwood正在尝试“pieza para guitarra afinada”（注：Cristián 2018年的作品，Piece For Tuned Guitar，90分钟！）。
我也想问一下关于杉本拓。你曾和他一起演出，而且你总是在网络上分享传播他的作品。作为一个吉他手，你对于他的作品或是他的演奏是怎样想的？
与杉本拓一起交谈、合作、演奏、喝酒对我来说是一种巨大的影响。 他不仅是一位伟大的音乐家，也是一位慷慨善良的人，总是乐于交谈，分享和倾听。 我很幸运能够和他一起工作。
最后，也请讲一下Nicolás Carrasco 和Santiago Astaburuaga，你的这盘磁带向他们致以敬意。他们是谁？为什么是他们？或许你也可以向我们介绍一下智利以及拉丁美洲这类音乐的场景。
他们都是杰出的智利作曲家，我非常非常欣赏他们的作品。我和他们合作了很久，此外，如果没有他们的帮助我无法像现在这样，这也是这个作品像他们二人致意的原因。
智利的场景还是很小的，尽管也有一些实验音乐的场地和音乐节。事实上我也在帮忙策划一个名为Relincha Festival 的音乐节，是在智利的南边。此外还有Tsonami，这是一个更大的音乐节，不过我并没有特别的兴趣。
对于Nicolás 和Santiago在这个场景里的重要性，我觉得最重要的是，他们不仅仅是贡献了他们的音乐，还有对于这种音乐创作实践的思考与反思的方式。