We were lucky to catch up with Laura Camacho recently and have shared our conversation below.
Laura, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
I’ve been working as a double bassist for 20 years in ensembles ranging from contemporary classical music to rock, Argentine tango, baroque, jazz, and most genres in between. Even when given deserved credit for my role in albums, instruction, or performances, the overall responsibility fell on someone else every time. For the last decade I have been developing and leading Athens Tango Project. We recently released our first EP, “Para Compartir” ( “To Be Shared “), and then continued to record additional music for the full length. As much as each recording as it is could never exist without the expertise of every musician involved, I had to make final decisions every step of the way, from what we record to why, how, what we want to say, what take is best, what the cover looks like, etc.
The process, as with most creatives paths, found me and the group working and re working parts for months during rehearsals. I personally had to decide what needed to be stylistically correct and when to allow myself to stray from tradition. Sometimes a line was changed temporarily during practice to achieve a didactical goal, and we ended up liking the personality of the resulting version, so we kept the change.
I also had to get instruments to be heard from one musician to another with our reduced instrumentation and in the setting we recorded it-live, socially distanced in a church for the EP, without headphones, for instance. A lot of extra bowing parts on the bass would have been played pizzicato had we not been in that setting.
Ultimately, I prioritized beauty, energy, professionalism and transparency over radical tradition, and I think letting go of what should be, in this context, allowed the EP to sound fresh and vital.
Laura, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
As an Argentinian musician I grew up in Buenos Aires, which is the birthplace of tango music. I’ve had a fascination with music since as long as I remember, with my parents recording tapes of me singing original songs with lyrics by myself in Kindergarten, to every stage in life. I have a passion for both classical and popular genres, and living in the USA I found myself missing my city’s music, which is how Athens Tango Project came to be. With the help of top local musicians in the Athens and Atlanta Ga area, guests, colleagues, and mentors, I have developed a sense of what I want as a musical director, and how to achieve it.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
I’m a firm believer in the transformative power of art, even for “non-artists”. Art makes everything better, from education to brain development, to social life. Imagine having no movies, or movies without music. Everyone benefits from creating and consuming art. In reality many of us spend our lives specializing ourselves professionally, sacrificing huge parts of our personal lives for what we do. Yet some audiences will think nothing of paying a large amount on drinks or food but will walk out of a show that charges a cover at the door. We need people to go out and consume art, buy a ticket to their friend’s show, their albums, or their paintings. Together we make a difference, and we can demand our daily systems to acknowledge what we bring to the table.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
My mission is ambitious. Unifying diversity. How do I get this across…I want to break stereotypes for what I do, remove terms like “flavor” or “hot” when referring to my music. It creates a shallow narrative without examination or experiencing of everything sublime and intellectually developed in it. I conversely like to find unifying elements in diversity. I personally like connecting elements that might not usually overlap, and playing around with what they have in common and how they complement each other. It’s not always a discovery in the big scheme of things, but it’s a fun process if you can deal with non-linear approaches, and some of it will be new in some way.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.athenstangoproject.com
- Instagram: athenstangoproject and laura_camacho_bass
- Facebook: Athens Tango Project
- Youtube: Athens Tango Project
Image Credits
Jason Trasher