Rinaldi and Piro, the “Reunion” of two tango greats at the end of the month at the Teatro Coliseo

(By Romina Grosso) The singer and actress Susana Rinaldi and the bandoneon player, composer and arranger Osvaldo Piro, two emblems of tango, will join together again on stage to present “Reencuentro”, the first album recorded together, on November 30 at the Teatro Coliseo, an experience that both live between emotion and gratitude.

“Acting with Osvaldo is a happiness, my voice manifests itself in a very special way when he is playing, because he has a story behind him, which is ours, and that carries everything we both carry out, as if it were the first time.” “, highlighted Susana “La Tana” Rinaldi in an interview with Télam carried out in the living room of her apartment, located in the Belgrano neighborhood.

Although they traveled their musical path separately, both have 60 years of history in Argentine popular music, they were a couple and have two children together: Ligia and Alfredo, both musicians and singers, she inclined to jazz and he has a proposal crossed by tango and rock.

“If I were not convinced that what Osvaldo was going to play was going to be what was going to move me very much, there would be nothing,” said the performer who met Piro in 1969, and with whom she maintains a complicity that goes beyond time and distance -he has lived for years in the Córdoba city of La Falda-.

In relation to the album “Reencuentro”, recently nominated for a Latin Grammy for Best Latin Album, Osvaldo said that for him it means “everything.”

“I think there will not be a second attempt, this is a document; that’s it, it’s there. Some are going to say that it’s historic too,” said the musician who wrote the arrangements for this work made up of the most emblematic tangos ever. time brought them together both in their artistic and personal lives, such as “Tinta Roja”, “El Ultimo Café” and “Yuyo Verde”, and three unpublished pieces by Piro.

During the conversation, these legends of Buenos Aires music, of which they are two of its greatest references, spoke of tango as an identity, of the importance that friends and figures like Cátulo Castillo had in their history, and particularly of this concert that It will feature an orchestra of 12 musicians directed by Piro and may be the beginning of the singer’s farewell to the stage.

Télam: How do you experience this opportunity to meet again on stage united by tango and its history?

Susana Rinaldi: I love it. Osvaldo lives there and I live here, so we both have to coincide. Thank God he is here, and we can anticipate what to say, what to do. It’s many years, it’s the children, it’s everything we’ve experienced, for us it’s a wonder that it happens. Ligia is falling over with pleasure and Alfredo cries for everything this represents in his life, in the life of his parents as well.

Osvaldo is a first-class teacher for what he is, what he gives, he is a guy who was also respected in a very special way by all the artists in the history of tango. Something very pleasant happens here and the people who come to see us are very young and splendid.

Osvaldo Piro: After many years we are going to meet in another way. Living from the profession that one likes is very important. We are grateful to God and to life to be able to practice the profession we love.

T: Is Ligia going to host the concert?

OP: We would like to. She came up with the idea of ​​introducing us. We have each had a musical outlet, and that is very important for the children. Children have to pass a certain age to calmly talk about what’s wrong with their parents and today they look at us as if it were the first time. We stopped being together many years ago.

SR: The beautiful thing is that we have both been lucky enough that they have loved us both enormously, separately or together; together they always wanted to see us.

T: How was the recording of “Reencuentro”?

OP: They are works that we know by heart, How will I meet Susana… I know very well how La Rinaldi sings. I made the arrangements in Córdoba, and she told me “I’ll give it her voice.”

She is a great professional. She doesn’t need anything. She is a spark, that makes many things easier for the musician. We dream, we fly. When the musician writes for all instruments, sometimes he gets away too, he puts in countermelodies, but Susana’s professionalism is so great that nothing surprised her, she entered all the times, just right. She knows what to expect, she knows how to say things like no one else. She is unique in what she does.

We always had an independent career. And this is the first one we recorded together.

T: Among the chosen tangos there are some, like “Tinta Roja”, that have lyrics by Cátulo Castillo. How was your relationship with him?

OP: Cátulo is Alfredo’s (son) godfather, he was like a dad to us. She saw the father that Susana lost when she was young in Cátulus in some way, and he was a great father, he was a very special being.

T: Susana, you paved the way for the role of women in tango.

SR: The respect we have for Osvaldo is very strong, in the history of music. I had to spend a lot of time getting the wonderful tango people to give me the ball.

OP: Because it was different, you were something else.

SR: I was like a good, pretentious and chosen girl. It was a time… men were something else for me, the only man I knew was my father. It was very hard but this man (Piro) had a lot to do with my life and he also naturally has the importance as an artist to make one bend. I always remember a friend of Osvaldo’s, who came and told me: “Don’t pay attention to what he tells you, because he wants to tell you something else but that’s what comes out.” He was a friend from the neighborhood, one of those who really matter, they are very few, but they have a very great force in our life.

In the era I speak of, a woman was not very welcome. I owe a lot to all those people. When those boys gave a girl like me cause for affection, there had to be something inside you in gratitude.

I never had people in favor within the history of tango; The only one I have to thank was Piazzolla. He was a difficult guy, but he said “if Rinaldi does it I’ll do it.” Do you know what it’s like for a young, cool woman to like a man who loves tango? What I got from each and every one was really very rare.