The Latin Recording Academy

It would seem unthinkable that the history of tango, an art form declared Intangible Patrimony of Humanity by UNESCO in 2009, and celebrated in concert halls and ballrooms around the world, could simply vanish in a fog of apathy and carelessness.

 And yet, according to TangoVia Buenos Aires, a non-profit organization based in Buenos Aires and dedicated to educational projects and the preservation and dissemination of tango, of more than 100.000 tango recordings done between 1902 and 1995, which marks the end of the analog era in Argentina, less than 20 per cent are available on a digital format.

 Furthermore, no less than 3,000 recordings are unavailable in any format. And at this it can be added that there is little sheet music available for tangos, be it simple lead sheets or arrangements for orquesta típica (tango orchestra).

For Ignacio Varchausky, bass player, educator and artistic director of TangoVia Buenos Aires, preserving tango history transcends artistic concerns. “At TangoVía we insist that this project is a Project about identity,” says Varchausky. “Preservation has to do with memory, and memory has to do with identity.”

The non-profit is working on various projects including the Digital Tango Archive (still in a test phase) and the publication, in collaboration with the Biblioteca Nacional de Argentina (Argentina´s National Library), of Arreglos para Orquesta de Tango, a book of arrangements for orchestra by the pianist and composer Horacio Salgán.

And TangoVía (www.tangovia.org) has also produced concerts, the documentary Si Sos Brujo, which follows the creation of the  Orquesta Escuela de Tango Emilio Balcarce,  and two recording series, El Arte de la Orquesta Típica, )The Art of the Tango Orchestra) and El Arte del Bandoneón (The Art of Bandoneón). In fact the recording Mi Fueye Querido, focusing on the work of maestro Leopoldo Federico and part of the  bandoneón series, won the 2009 Latin GRAMMY for Best Tango Album.

In an interview that took place in New York City, Varchausky, 33, spoke about philosophy behind the digitaliztion project and the urgency in getting the job done.

How did the idea of the Digital Tango Archive start?

The project has an initial version because of my fanaticism for [singer] Ignacio Corsini. I’ve learned very quickly that there was very little available so I started to look around, little by little got immersed in the world of collectors. I befriended some of the most important tango collectors, among them José Forzano. He began to lend me his discs and on my own initiative I began to digitize them. It was all very rudimentary. I transferred old [shellac] records to mini-disc, which is not the best format but was the best I could do at the time.

After that, I started to think about digitizing all of Corsini’s work. And so at 18 and with no professional credentials to speak of, I took a proposal to the Fondo Nacional de las Artes (roughly the equivalent to the National Endowment for the Arts) and, as it could be expected, nothing happened.

I continued working, started my professional career as player, also produced concerts, started the Orquesta Escuela de Tango and then we created TangoVía.

The past four years we have dedicated all the resources we have managed to get to learn how many reacordings of tango exist, in which format, who ha sthem, how we can Access these recordings, what technology we need (for digitizing the material) and which are the proper procedures to reach an international standard of quality in preservation.

Why your interest in preservation?

Because since I got interested in tango, I realized that the information I needed was not available.

So I began to crisscross the city looking for collections that might hold the material I needed or intrigued me.

But I get interested in tango not only as an art form, which is extraordinary in all its forms, but also because is an artistic expression that I believe is a key piece in helping us understand our [argentine] identity.

We are working for the future. This is protecting the past to understand the present and make sure there’s a future. There is a quote by [Germand composer Gustav] Mahler that we like a lot: “Tradition is not the preservation of ash, but rather the transmission of fire.”    

That’s our philosophy.

What have you done so far in the digitalization’s project?

We are at a pilot stage, and for that we have chosen three legendary artists in the history of tango and three contemporary artists: Ignacio Corsini, Alfredo Gobbi, Horacio Salgán, Sonia Posetti, el Quinteto Ventarrón,  y Julio Pane.

We chose them to show that the project doesn’t have a nostalgic view but that we understand tango as a living organism. We understand that we have to care for its history and tradition, but we cannot get stuck in them. Once the historic material is digitized, we’ll add the contemporary artists.

We picked Corsini, a very important figure in his day, now forgotten figure; we chose Horacio Salgán, who’s 94 and despite he is widely considered a living glory of tango, most of his recordings are unavailable; and, finally, we picked [ violinist, composer and bandleader] Alfredo Gobbi, who has a small catalogue, just 85 recordings, but very important. His orchestra is the best example of the enormous stylistic variety in instrumental tango.

How do you envision the finished project?

The idea is to digitize the entire catalogue of the history of tango in the next five years. Then through various agreements, be able to put in our database all this information online, available to  any individual or institution that might want to obtain information. We want to increase the appreciation of tango, share information, educate the audience and make this great art form available to any person in the world with just two clicks.