Introduce Yourself : Argentine composer & pianist by Juan Maria Solare

Hi there, I introduce myself:

I am an Argentina-born pianist & composer and live in Germany since 1993. Let's fake a Q&A session:

* Which kind of music do you prefer?

- What I play (as a pianist or conductor) and what I write (as a composer) usually falls into one of the following genres: piano, neoclassical, tango argentino, moderate experimental, chamber music, orchestral, choir, electronic experimental or ambient. Some pieces will be closer to one category than to the others, some will overlap categories.

* Can you compose music in other styles (say, hip hop or salsa)?

- I will not compose in any possible style, but what I do, I do it well.

* What are you looking for here?

- Besides getting to know more people contributing to the wonderful seventh art (which is the main sense of networking), just showing you my already existing music or composing new music for movies or short films.

* Do you have any favourite film genres? Films that you actually see or love?

- I love cartoon & animations, experimental film, horror, detectives, mystery & horror (miam miam), documentary film. Does anybody here want to make a documentary film with animations telling a horror story dealing with experimental crime?

* We don't actually use experimental music a lot...

- If you think that experimental music is more difficult to use, recall so many horror movies with avant-garde music... 2001: A Space Odyssey featuring Ligeti, some Almodóvar using Penderecki...

* Do you have any experience with film music?

- My music has been used in 7 or 8 short films (documentary, romantic, drama or experimental film). I can make you a complete list later if you want. Three of them are in the IMDb.

* How did you get your music into that films?

- To be honest, in most cases my music was used because I knew the director personally. It makes sense: one prefers to work with someone that one already knows and not with a few letters on a screen.

* Do you have any ideal way of collaborating with a director?

- Yes, but unfortunately is not the way most music is decided nowadays. My ideal model is that of film director Sergei Eisenstein working with composer Sergei Prokofiev (for instance in Ivan the Terrible, 1944). Deciding the pace of the music according to each scene; not putting whatever music on top of a ready movie. Another great model for me are the short animations of Norman McLaren (we can discuss if his art is rather visual music). This way of working with music is possibly 1% of the whole scene nowadays (albeit hopefully not 0%). A possible reason is that director and composer should have a common language to discuss ideas, and the truth is that most directors have a limited accurate musical vocabulary and most composers have a limited technical understanding of visuals. I say "most", not "all".

* 'nough said, where can we listen to your work?

- In Spotify (https://www.sptfy.com/jmsolare) you will mostly find my neoclassical music

- Here you have a tango teaser / reel as a pianist: https://youtu.be/4e9JWmJWlig

- "Filmscapes" is a SoundCloud playlist with some music destined to sync: https://soundcloud.com/juan-maria-solare/sets/filmscapes

* We wish you success

- Define 'Success' please

* No, no, meant is: "we wish you all the best in your future endeavours and personal life"

THE END