MARCELO MERCADANTE

The universe of tango lives within Marcelo Mercadante’s bandoneon. A universe where folklore, jazz, flamenco and all those traditional and contemporary sonorities with which masters such as Astor Piazzolla and Dino Saluzzi have created and opened paths, are also sheltered in it.

Marcelo's trajectory has a singularity that identifies him; his eclectic taste for music gives his compositions a novel vision. Possessing a solid base, he studied with Rodolfo Mederos, the master himself introduced him to an even more complex world such as harmony and orchestration. Later came Néstor Marconi, Julio Pane and Juan José Mosalini. He has been living in Spain since 1992, and since then he has not stopped getting involved in his own and other people's projects.

In 1994 he formed the "Trío Argentino de Tango", a group with which he edited two CDs. "T.A.T" and "Revolucionario", performing together in countless concerts all over Europe and a good part of Asia. He accompanied artists of great height within the tango, like Daniel Binelli (Quartet of Bandoneones), Susana Rinaldi, Luis Borda, and made innumerable tours accompanying Amelita Baltar, who was the vocalist of Astor Piazzolla.

Mercadante worked with internationally renowned artists such as Joan Manuel Serrat, Raphael, Julia Migenes, Miguel Poveda, Lalo Schifrin and Dorantes, among others. As a soloist he performs Astor Piazzola's work together with: the National Chamber Orchestra of Andorra, the Chamber Orchestra "Arpeggione". the O.B.C. - Orquestra Nacional de Barcelona i Catalunya - and the Orquesta Nacional de Euskadi, the latter under the direction of maestro Lalo Schifrin. In 2006 he performed as soloist the Concert for Bandoneon and Orchestra, "Aconcagua", by Astor Piazzolla together with the Galician Symphony Orchestra.

With his group "Marcelo Mercadante y su Quinteto Porteño", he edited four CDs, "Esquina Buenos Aires", "Con un taladro en el corazón", "Suburbios del Alma" and "Justamente"; In this last work, co-produced with the Argentine writer and journalist Pablo Marchetti, featured great artists such as Miguel Poveda, Martirio, Omar Mollo, Lidia Borda, Leopoldo Federico and Hugo Fattoruso.

He collaborated with Miguel Poveda as bandoneonist and composer for the award-winning album "Desglaç" (2005) and was nominated for the Clarin Awards in 2007, as "Revelation Figure of Tango".

He composed and recorded the soundtrack for the book "Fueye" by Jorge Gonzalez Varela, winner of the First International Graphic Novel Prize created by Fnac and Ediciones Sins Entido. He collaborated as a performer in the production and in the concerts by David Dorantes on his tour "Sin Muros".

In 2009 he recorded and edited the CD "Tachar nostalgias" with guitarist Gustavo Battaglia. In 2015 he edited two CDs, "Del ancho río" with singer Ana Rossi and "Cortita y al pie" with Gustavo Battaglia.

In 2016, together with the pianist and composer Juan Esteban Cuacci, he formed the duo Cuacci/Mercadante. In 2017, they released, through the label Discmedi, the CD "Siempre en la Trinchera" with songs by Mercadante and Cuacci specially composed for this project. Again along with Juan Esteban Cuacci he formed a symphonic project -based in their own compositions- which they performed at the Landestheater of Coburg (Germany) together with the Coburg Symphony Orchestra in 2017 and in 2018 together with the Sant Cugat Symphony Orchestra at the Teatro La Massa in Vilassar de Dalt and at the Sant Cugat Auditorium (Catalonia).

In December 2018 he introduced a new group "Marcelo Mercadante Sextet" at the Jamboree Jazz Club in Barcelona. This project captures the union of two worlds that inhabit Mercadante's work, instrumental music and song.

In February 2019 the sextet recorded the C.D. "La Llave" which is now edited by Nuba Records/ Karonte.

Marcelo Mercadante is not like Gardel, anchored in Paris. Living in Barcelona for almost three decades, he moves between two continents: he uses words like "computer", but not a day goes by without drinking Mate and evoking the Rio de la Plata. He has spent more than half of his life among Catalan hams and creams, but never lost the connection with his sentimental upbringing. And among those evocations he can make a geniality as paying homage to Montevideo and its gastronomic emblem, the Canadian Chivito and the mustard of La Pasiva, with a masterful candombe.
Reo and sophisticated at the same time, he has composed, once again, sublime music that dialogues with a tango tradition that unites Anibal Troilo, Leopoldo Federico and Astor Piazzolla, among others.
But at the same time it has shaped a personal music that projects that legacy into a universal sound. On the other side of the Atlantic, Mercadante left memories, family and affections. Among them is Pablo Marchetti, an old friend from adolescence with whom he not only shares a passion for San Lorenzo de Almagro: also a vision of the world crossed by the prism of tango. Filosopher and sharp lyricist, Marchetti conforms with Mercadante one of the most remarkable compositional pairs of the 21st century. The key is not only a wink to old ethyl passions, it is also the invitation to open a bottle of dreams and, while drinking it, realize that reality, in actuality, can be the most wonderful of mysteries.
Humphrey Inzillo
Buenos Aires, septiembre de 2019

SEXTET

This project captures the union of two worlds that inhabit Mercadante's work, instrumental music and song.

In the 40's it was of vital importance for the big orchestras and their conductors to maintain the danceable character and within that concept the intervention of the arrangers and composers made and unmake, found and assumed great risks; both, in its instrumental repertoire as in song format.

At the end of the 50's the genius Astor Piazzolla perceives and proclaims that the world and the society are changing and that the music of Buenos Aires must also change; evidently he was right and his music has taken Tango to unsuspected places until that moment, in some way he turned it into a more "world's genre".

Marcelo Mercadante's Sextet performs works written between 2016 and 2018, where current instrumental music and today's song coexist.

The lyrics are written by the great Argentine writer/poet Pablo Marchetti. Mercadante and Marchetti have been writing songs together for more than 20 years. Their songs have been interpreted by Miguel Poveda, Martirio, Lidia Borda, Omar Mollo, among others.