GERARDO VILLAR
Gerardo Villar is a guitar and music teacher, graduate of the Music School Conservatorio Julián Aguirre. He also studied musical composition, orchestration, and jazz improvisation.
He has been working in the music industry since 1988 performing and recording alongside numerous leading figures of both popular and traditional folk music. He has gone on tour across the country, with two performances in Stadium Luna Park, and has recorded an album, “La Criolla”, with Nelly Omar, the legendary Argentinean singer. Furthermore, he has recorded and performed with prestigious artists such as Fernando Suárez Paz, Fito Páez, Los Amados, Beatriz Suárez Paz, Carlos Morel, Victoria Morán, Lalo de los Santos, Popi Spatocco, Beto Solas, Horacio Avilano y Mariana Novoa, among others.
In 2001, he has performed on stage in the Festival de Tango de Granada, Spain, as music director as well as guitar player in the show “Discépolo, la vida del poeta”. He has worked and travelled as guitar player for Royal Caribbean’s Rhapsody of the Seas Orchestra. He is the conductor of the Big Jazz Band since 2007, and since 2012 he also conducts the Big Band Jazz of Florencio Varela school’s orchestra.
He is a permanent teacher of the subject Instrumento Armónico – where he approaches guitar playing from the point of view of jazz, tango, and folklore – in the School of Music Conservatorio Julián Aguirre and in the School of Arts República de Italia. He has been the arranger, director and guitar player for Mariana Novoa’s album Ayer, which has been awarded the Premio Gardel 2016 for Best Solo Female Tango Album.
Currently, he is introducing his debut album Gerardo Villar y los Aguirre.
GERARDO VILLAR Y LOS AGUIRRE
With conceptual clarity, original compositions and remakes of several classical pieces of tango and folklore, Gerardo Villar y los Aguirre eagerly and with eloquence, take us on a journey to live the experience of authors such as Discépolo, Piazzolla, Zitarrosa, and legendary duets such as Troilo and Manzi, and Gardel and Le Pera. They also pay tribute to the marvelous and centenary Nelly Omar, singer who was accompanied by Gerardo and his guitar during her last years of life.
Los Aguirre is a group of talented young musicians graduated from the School of Music Conservatorio Julián Aguirre. These musicians, Alejandro Caro, Martín Bracone and Pablo Juárez Levar in guitars, and Pablo Brie in double bass, are former students of Gerardo Villar. The debut album, produced by El Club del Disco, also has the collaboration of renowned guest artists, some of them that stand out are Popi Spatocco, Edith Rossetti, Beto Solas, Emiliano Castignola, Daniela Azás y Sergio Mazzitelli.
“This is not an amateur album of traditional folk music. Gerardo Villar is an experienced musician who has come to record his first solo album supported by an interesting musical journey. A renewed name of Argentinean folklore bursting with taste and coherence. (…) An album with a creole and native taste, halfway between the countryside and the city; a suburban taste that defines these remakes of classics as well as the original pieces and places them in a new sphere. It is not easy to say something new about landmarks such as Uno or La Cumparsita, but Gerardo incites you to say something else and at the same time, introduces new pieces with such determination that makes them sound familiar from the first time you listen to them. A group and an album that will have everyone talking this year.” El Club del Disco
“(…) From his beginnings, Gerardo has known how to keep the love for music at its best and through humility, study, persistence, and curiosity as his driving force. This first solo album, which has been recorded in a bit more than a year, is the result of a lifetime as a guitar player. As all the things that are everlasting, these musical pieces were created with time and dedication, probably two of the most valuable things we can come across today”. Popi Spatocco