Any true
fusion in music represents a delicate negotiation. It requires both respect for
the different genres in play, their traditions and codes and a 'why not?'
attitude. Cutting-and-pasting is one
thing, translating the approach, technique and sensibility of one tradition to
another demands a special talent and commitment.
On Nora
La Bella, her debut recording, New York-based Bolivian soprano Gian-Carla
Tisera makes bold, daring crossings between opera, jazz and Latin American folk
music, art song and political song, experimentation and roots music.
Throughout
the recording, she sings in English, Spanish, Italian and Quechua. Co-produced
by Tisera and Grammy-nominated Cuban pianist Elio Villafranca, Nora La Bella
includes original songs, provocative versions of two works from the classical
vocal repertoire and several pieces from the Latin American songbook, including
a couple from the socially committed Nueva Canción.
But this
is not a lab project. Rather, it's an expression of her experience and her
personal search.
"I
had this idea for a new kind of opera, something different, accessible and
fresh," says Tisera. "I love opera and that's my training, and while
I am not a jazz singer or a traditional folk singer, both genres have been an
integral part of my life and my musical experience. And I also thought: how can
I express my immigrant experience? How can I speak of my perspective as a
Bolivian woman, as an American woman looking back at my country from a
distance? All of that came into play when working on Nora La Bella."
Accompanied
by a quartet featuring Villafranca at the piano and guest artists such as
trumpeter Diego Urcola and five-time Grammy Award-winning bassist John Benitez,
Tisera's music includes nods to Bolivian folklore (her original "Señora
Chichera" and "Cueca Lejanía") and her own versions of the aria
"Tu che le vanita" from Giuseppe Verdi's Don Carlo, appearing here as
the source for "Ernesto in the tomb," and the madrigal
"Amarilli" from Giulio Caccini's Le Nuove Musiche.
She
offers a very personal take, often celebrating at once vanguard and tradition,
of the folk song "La Llorona" and folk based pieces such as
"Alfonsina y El Mar" and "Mujer, Niña y Amiga."
As for
her social and political ideals, Tisera draws her lines in broad strokes with
her classically-tinged re-interpretations of the Chilean folk group
Quilapayún's "The people united," and Carlos Puebla's "Hasta
Siempre," an ode to Che Guevara and his revolutionary principles that
Tisera personalizes with a musical quote inspired by Puccini.
"These
songs carry deep social messages, and I chose them for how they inspired broken
societies and gave hope to generations with powerful ideals of love and
unity," she says. "They transcend time, culture and race and through
them I express my artistic and political thoughts using my classical voice.
Also, these choices help me challenge the perceptions that separate artists,
especially classically trained artists, from their communities and from the
music that speaks to the modern world."
Born to
a Bolivian mother and Italo-Argentine father, Tisera was raised in Cochabamba,
a city surrounded by mountains located in the center of Bolivia. She studied at
the Instituto Eduardo Laredo, in Cochabamba, and later moved to Los Angeles,
CA, where she completed her Masters Degree in Opera Performance at the
University of Southern California.
"I
moved to New York in 2008, and I arrived here as an opera singer and with the
dream of being an opera singer. That was it," she says. "I've loved
Latin American folk music all my life, I've been intrigued and inspired by jazz
and I'm very socially conscious. But as a musician, my choice had always been
opera and the classical stage. That was my posture for my first three years in
New York and, frankly, I started to feel empty. In the opera world it's very
hard to have your own project and your own ideas. There is a repertoire, you
are a performer, and that's that."
She
worked in the United States and Bolivia, performing with the Los Angeles
Philharmonic, the National Symphony Orchestra of Bolivia and the Pasadena
Symphony, among others, and for five years she toured with the Bolivian Baroque
Project, performing 17th century music found in the Jesuit missions of the
Bolivian jungle - a project that showcased her voice on the world's greatest
concert halls. But once in New York, she also started collaborating with visual
artists and dipping her toes in the murky waters of jam sessions. "Of
course, many looked at me like an odd duck and I would tell them: 'Yes, I am an
opera singer. No, I don't know jazz standards, but I do know Latin American
music, I sing boleros and I can improvise so, why not?' And that's how I met Elio."
Fittingly,
their first musical encounter was in the baroque style - the improvisatory
nature of baroque being an area of contact between jazz and classical music.
As
Tisera began working on the recording she chose pieces based on how they affected
her vocally and for the possibilities they offered for reinvention. "I
tried many, many songs and ideas. It took me a year of trial and error, to
polish the arrangements, create new pieces and let them grow," she says.
For
those who see her approach as avant-garde, Tisera says she is "pushing the
vanguard but to bring audiences to experience the greatness of opera as it
relates to modern themes of love, politics and culture. I long to present opera
not like an old, precious form but instead, as a vibrant, contemporary style
that speaks to our concerns now. That's why there are operatic moments in Nora
La Bella - but they might include improvisation, or the musical treatment might
include Bolivian or Afro-Latin rhythms, and elements of Rock or Spoken Word. I
remember during the recording we were listening to the second take of 'Ernesto
in the Tomb,' with its Afro-Cuban groove and my operatic voice soaring above
the music. The musicians heard it and said 'Wow, it works!' and I had to laugh.
'Yes guys, of course it works'."
Upcoming
New York City Performances:
August
21 @ Joe's Pub - 7:30 PM
(w/ Elio
Villafranca, piano; Edward Perez, bass;
Franco
Pinna, drums; Paulo Stagnaro, percussion)
joespub.publictheater.org
September
13 @ St. Peters - 8:00 PM
featuring
Bolivian Folklore Dancers
(w/
Octavio Brunetti, piano; Edward Perez, bass;
Franco
Pinna, drums; Reinaldo de Jesus, percussion)
saintpeters.org/jazz
September
30 @ Americas Society - 7:00 PM
(w/ Elio
Villafranca, piano; Edward Perez, bass;
Franco
Pinna, drums; Reinaldo de Jesus, percussion)
as-coa.org
Gian-Carla
Tisera · Nora la Bella
Release
Date: August 19, 2014
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