april2018

APRIL 2018 -

SEXY GLAM

MAGAZINE -

ART MAKERS

odolfo Marcelo Zanetti Via, is one of those interest per-

sons to get to know. With a solid career and background as a

lawyer, he decided a while ago to stop practicing law to devote

himself totally to music, and without a doubt such determina-

tion has made the world a more beautiful place, adorned by the

chords of his bandoneon and his love for the tango.

We have had the opportunity to talk with him and we are

pleased and proud that today we can make this small tribute to

one of the great art makers.

SEXY GLAM MAGAZINE:

Who is Rodolfo Zanetti?

RODOLFO ZANETTI:

I do not know if I could answer this

question, because I’m still formulating it myself. And maybe

this search is one of the notes that define me. In that sense,

music and bandoneon have helped me enormously and for that

reason they are fundamental in my life.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that they have even

saved my life.

SGM:

Where was your love for music born, and especially for

the bandoneon?

RZ:

It was love at first sight, and it was at my Grandmother

Dina’s house. As a kid, I spent many summers in her house,

and it was a tradition on the weekends to sit in front of the

television to watch a classic tango program at that time. Some-

times the memory is inventive, but I would swear that after

listening to Libertango played by the Osvaldo Piro orchestra, I

was totally in love with the instrument. The rest was insisting

on the caprice until they bought me my first bandoneon. With-

out a doubt, one of the happiest days of my life.

SGM:

Where did you study this instrument?

RZ:

It was always in Mendoza, and with private tutors. In

those years the bandoneon was considered a popular instru-

ment that did not correspond to be included in the curricula of

music conservatories, always more formal and turned to music

mistakenly called academic. My first teacher was Carlos Caro,

then I studied with Jorge Puebla and Hilario Alberto Iribarne. I

was very lucky.

SGM:

Your choice for the instrument seems obvious from the

instrument you play, however, are there other alternatives of

musical genres for the bandoneon?

RZ:

Totally, the bandoneon can tackle any type of music suc-

cessfully, due to its great extension of notes, the diversity of its

registers and, particularly, its expressive capacity. And being a

relatively new instrument, happily, it stimulates the creation of

new music, thus expanding the horizon of our musical abili-

ties. It is an extraordinary instrument.

SGM:

What are your dreams as a musician, as an artist?

RZ:

Fortunately I am living my dream. Being a musician is

certainly being lucky. Still, I hope to extend this dream to

more personal music, of my own authorship, that have quali-

ty and justify that someone keep it in his memory and, every

so often, whistle it. If that happens, it will be a dream with

pretensions of immortality (the only one that I would tolerate,

to be honest).

SGM:

What does Mendoza and New York mean in your life?

How did each of these places influence your life?

RZ:

Well, the joy of being born in Mendoza gave me the expe-

rience of a self-sufficient city in many aspects, culturally rich,

musically sophisticated and with an excellent School of Music,

and a diversity of thinking and liberal lifestyle more developed

than other western cities of Argentina. At the same time, a life

certainly bourgeois fed by many good friends who made my

days in Mendoza a very happy ones that I keep in my mem-

ory. When I decided to come to New York, I was afraid that I

would lose that quality of life, but fortunately it has not been

like that. I have many good friends in New York, and to that

has been added a greater cultural, musical and artistic diversity

that have stimulated my strength enormously. I have never felt

so vital and young, despite the fallacious mathematics of the

years.

SGM:

Where would you like to live in the future because of

affections and for a professional development?

RZ:

I think the question contains the answer. I will live where

my affections and my professional development are. That is,

wherever my bandoneon is, and where I can express myself

freely and continue studying.

SGM:

What would you say to those who want to live from art,

from their artistic passion?

RZ:

That there is no life outside of that. The rest is just trying

to conquer more personal freedom to do well, and that requires

a certain dose of courage and insanity. I always believed in

John Stuart Mill’s ideal that being free is making our lives a

work of art.