Guillermo Gregorio Interview

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Jason Weiss

Guillermo Gregorio (Buenos Aires, 1941) holds a unique position in modern music. An Argentine who came to the U.S. three decades ago, he developed an early interest in both jazz and contemporary classical music, while his studies in architecture and design led to years of teaching in Buenos Aires and Chicago. Though composers like Anton Webern and Lennie Tristano have been cited as influences, he has explained that his music is most directly affected by the visual arts, specifically the Constructivists. Already in Buenos Aires he had explored the convergence of music with art, by way of happenings and other performances in public spaces, as part of the collective Movimiento Música Más that he co-founded in 1969 with fellow musician-composers Norberto Chavarri and Roque De Pedro. Several of their pieces have been preserved on his archival CD Otra Música (2000), along with tape experiments and free improvisations that he did in his early twenties. In the late 1980s, he began a long-term affiliation with Hat Art Records, first as a member of Franz Koglmann’s group, later through other projects and half a dozen records under his own name, notably Degrees of Iconicity (2000) and Faktura (2002). This interview took place on December 18, 2018, at his home in Inwood, the northernmost tip of Manhattan.