This film by Norbert Wiedmer and Enrique Ros follows bandoneonist Dino Saluzzi and cellist Anja Lechner to locations in Argentina, Germany, Armenia, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland. Your perception of music and your way of playing music change when you travel, says Anja Lechner. The camera joins the journey and underlines the point, illuminating the processes of music making in very different contexts.
These two musicians come from backgrounds that could hardly be more diverse - Dino from South American tango and folk traditions and Anja from the world of European classical music, but they have worked closely together since the mid-1990s, beginning with the Kultrum alliance between Saluzzi and the Rosamunde Quartett.
El Encuentro (The Encounter) offers insights into the life of these travelling musicians seen here in concert, in rehearsal sessions, at recording studios, and in informal settings - in conversations without words, and in lively exchanges of ideas, philosophy, and experiences. They are variously joined by a cast that includes composer Tigran Mansurian, arranger Levon Eskenian, pianist George Gruntz, and Dino's brother, saxophonist/ clarinettist Felix Saluzzi.
The journey culminates in a concert of Dino's music with the Metropole Orchestra in Amsterdam's Musziekgebow. A musician who has created a unique personal idiom, I compose with hopes and memories, says Dino Saluzzi, as he shapes a forward-looking personal idiom, coloured by remembrances of things past. The concert recording is documented on the celebrated ECM live album 'El Encuentro'.
Personnel: Dino Saluzzi and Anja Lechner, with Tigran Mansurian, George Gruntz, Levon Eskenian, Pierre-Dominique Ponelle, Felix Saluzzi, U.T. Ghandi, Alessandra Franco, Jules Buckley
