Lately I’m hearing quite a lot of music, among the styles, electronic, funk and classic. I wanted to share this special moment in Piazzolla’s life, where he mets Nadia Boulanger, his teacher in Paris. The insightful Boulanger turned his life around in a day, as Piazzolla tells beautifully in his own words:

“When I met her, I showed her my kilos of symphonies and sonatas. She started to read them and suddenly came out with a horrible sentence: ‘It’s very well written.’
And stopped, with a big period, round like a soccer ball. After a long while, she said:
“Here you are like Stravinsky, like Bartók, like Ravel, but you know what happens? I can’t find Piazzolla in this.”
And she began to investigate my private life: what I did, what I did and did not play, if I was single, married, or living with someone, she was like an FBI agent! And I was very ashamed to tell her that I was a tango musician. Finally I said, “I play in a ‘night club.’” I didn’t want to say “cabaret.” And she answered, “Night club, mais oui, but that is a cabaret, isn’t it?” “Yes,” I answered, and thought, “I’ll hit this woman in the head with a radio….” It wasn’t easy to lie to her.
She kept asking: “You say that you are not pianist. What instrument do you play, then?” And I didn’t want to tell her that I was a bandoneon player, because I thought, “Then she will throw me from the fourth floor.” Finally, I confessed and she asked me to play some bars of a tango of my own. She suddenly opened her eyes, took my hand and told me: “You idiot, that’s Piazzolla!” And I took all the music I composed, ten years of my life, and sent it to hell in two seconds.”

Piazzolla returned to Argentina in 1955, formed the Octeto Buenos Aires to play tangos, and never looked back.