BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
When saxophonist Nick Russoniello studied at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, he was on the hunt for a guitarist to try out Piazzolla’s ‘Histoire du Tango’. As luck would have it, guitarist Murilo Tanouye, from Brazil, was in the same year as Nicholas and agreed to give the piece a shot. In 2006, Duo Histoire was born and the award winning pair perform tango, bossa, and Australian works.
“Murilo has been fascinating to work with, he brings a very broad musical background to every thing he plays,” Nicholas says. “His earliest musical education was steeped in the Brazilian popular music tradition, the music of Baden Powell and Joao Gilberto. He then went on to study classical guitar at the conservatorium and now does a lot of work in funk and hip-hop bands, so I’ve certainly learnt a lot about groove and timing from this collaboration.”
Nicholas – the 2011 ABC Young Performer of the Year – is an established saxophonist in his own right but says working with classical guitar has changed the way he approaches his own instrument.
“Compared to the saxophone, the classical guitar does everything in miniature: miniature dynamics, miniature articulations, miniature tone colour contrasts. At first, I really struggled and it felt was like Murilo was doing all these intricate things and I was trying to join him using a sledgehammer. So I had to learn to do all the things I wanted to do on the sax but in miniature. It’s been fantastic for my playing.”
Duo Histoire is on tour this month performing the works by Spanish guitar masters Granados, Albeniz, and Tarrega along with loved French composers Ravel, Faure, and Ibert. “The great thing about the duo is the diversity of music we can play,” Nicholas says. But his favourite composer to explore with Murilo: Piazzolla.
“Astor Piazzolla was the first composer we worked on together and there is always some Piazzolla in our repertoire. It’s just extremely lyrical and expressive music – what’s not to like?”
Though the two instruments are natural “outsiders” to the classical chamber music, Nicholas reckons saxophone and guitar have still influenced music throughout history and can be applied across a rich variety of genres.
“Unlike a string quartet or piano trio, there are no rules and traditions for what a saxophone and classical guitar ensemble can play. So we can pretty much do whatever we want!”
See Duo Histoire perform across various cities this month. To see when they’ll come to you, check out www.duohistoire.com.
Image supplied.
