Berta Rojas - A Million Flowers
Over the past few decades Paraguayan guitarist Berta Rojas has truly solidified her name amongst the best of the best within the modern classical guitar world. She has been dazzling audiences worldwide with her heartfelt interpretations, virtuosic technique, and through her numerous recordings where she has often reimagined the role of the guitar and its music.
Berta’s recordings are held in high regard and she has been nominated for multiple Latin Grammy Awards. Her 2012 album, Día y Medio that she recorded with Paquito D’Rivera was nominated for Best Instrumental Album, her 2014 album, Salsa Roja was nominated for Best Classical Album, and in 2015 her album, Historia del Tango was nominated for Best Tango Album in that year.
In 2022, all of this changed and Berta finally won, not one, but two Latin Grammy Awards. Her album Legado which features the music of twentieth century legends Ida Presti and Maria Lusia Anido won the award for Best Classical Music Album, and the piece Anido's Portrait which she had commissioned by Sergio Assad won the award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition. This achievement makes Berta the first and only Paraguyan to win a Latin Grammy Award, and this is an honor in which she holds dear.
Berta recently sat down with us to discuss her new album, the Latin Grammy Awards, Augustin Barrios, and so much more.
Photo by Rodrigo Da Silva
Brad: How would you describe the classical guitar?
Berta: I don't think that there is a better description than a small orchestra, and one which carries so many secrets. As Agustin Barrios used to say, it's a box filled with secrets that we try to discover day by day, and it's an instrument that never stops giving answers and bringing new questions. It is a great challenge to try and find something new about the instrument each day, but I have realized over the years that the more I search the more I discover, and the more that the secrets only seem to multiply.
Brad: That's a beautiful way of putting it. I’ve heard you joke that the guitar is a near impossible instrument?
Berta: It truly is, and I believe that it was Paco de Lucía who said that for the amount of effort you put into the guitar, the reward you get is quite out of balance, or something like this. I'm not very good at remembering quotes, but I do remember the spirit of them.
The classical guitar is an instrument which challenges you in many different ways. First of all, you have to keep playing the instrument, because it requires that you are active, just a few missed days and the instrument doesn’t respond as well for me. Another is that the sound decays so rapidly, you really must be a master of dynamics so that you can convey pianissimo to forte within such a limited range. The guitar also has so many different colors, and you need to be thinking about the orchestration often. All of this happens within such a small range, and most of the time these things happen in just the right hand. So, it's a very small space in which you have to create so much magic, a very challenging instrument to play indeed.
Brad: I know that your former teacher Ray Chester just passed away. What was it like to be at Peabody studying with him back in the day?
Berta: Ray was, first of all, an amazing human being. He was approachable, he was easy to work with, he was extremely knowledgeable about the instrument and about music. He always brought a sense of humor with him to lessons, and this helped to alleviate the hardship of learning the instrument. I remember when he wanted to file down my nails, I handed him my right hand. He looked at me, he said
"Do you trust me?"
I said, "Of course I do!"
And he said "I wouldn't if I were you!"
I still remember those moments with Ray, it was such a happy and beautiful time in my life. He was an excellent teacher who carried the tradition of Aaron Shearer, and he was very proud of it. I also think that he played an integral role in helping make Peabody the great institution that it is today. If I am not mistaken, he was crucial in helping bring Manuel Barrueco to the school, and I'm not sure about his relationship with Julian Gray, but I also believe that he invited Julian to be a part of the school too. He had a vision and made very good decisions for Peabody which helped to establish it as the immensely popular and high-level guitar program that it is today.
Brad: Were you at Peabody the same time as Michael Hedges?
Berta: I came to the school after him, but you know what happens when you attend an institution that has produced legends like Michael, is that you believe it's possible for yourself. It was a great inspiration to know of them and to feel proud of being in a space that he also occupied, his talent, and his magic. So, all of that belongs to the pride of being at Peabody in those days
Brad: In a lot of ways your new album Legado is your first pure classical guitar album in a while.
Berta: When I came to Berklee, because Berklee is a school that has many amazing players, and players from a lot of different styles, I found out that a classical guitarist is what the school needed, and I have felt more and more classical since being there. It was also an embracing of who I am as a player and being able also to embrace the light that comes from classical music. It's just so powerful, so beautiful. I was always curious about different styles, forms, incarnations, and for my album Historia Del Tango I wanted to be the lead singer of an orchestra. At that moment in time that’s exactly where I wanted to be, and I wanted the guitar to be there too because we are normally always so busy playing the parts by ourselves. I realized that I just wanted to play one line of music and to feel the sensation of making it sing beautifully. Carlos Franzetti understood exactly what I was trying to achieve, and so he arranged all of the music for me on that album. I visited Brazil to immerse myself musically, I experimented quite a bit, I wandered and I don't regret any of these experiments because they have informed my playing so much.
With my new album, Legado, it was Candice Mowbray who played an integral role in putting this project together. She presented me with very interesting research which I had commissioned from her about four years ago.
Photo by Rodrigo Da Silva
Brad: Did Candice write the liner notes?
Berta: Yes, exactly, and you know another amazing coincidence, she defended her Doctoral thesis on Ida Presti November 17, 10 years ago, and November 17, 2022 was the day of the Latin Grammy Awards. Candice felt this music so profoundly. I told her
“Candice, this is the moment. This is the moment that I can embrace this project. Let's savor it. Let's do it at my own pace. I won't rush. I won't force myself to do anything I don't feel immensely in my heart."
So, she presented me with all the music, her research, and I started to savor it. I took my time reading through it until I found the music that I could honor and play for years to come. It is amazing when you feel that, when you find repertoire that you can bring your entire self into.
It doesn't happen with all the music I play, but it happened with this music. I can play this music every day, and I'm looking forward to playing “Segovia,” and I can’t wait to play “Idylle pour Ida” because they are so profound. There are so many ways to continue going deeper and deeper into this music.
When I met Isabelle Presti, who is Ida Presti's granddaughter. We hugged, we laughed, and oh my God, there were like a million flowers coming down to us, a million hearts coming down to us because we felt so connected with Ida in that moment. It was a very special moment. I really feel that their stories are profound and their music is not something that I embrace lightly. No, it's here to stay in my heart.
Brad: Presti’s piece “Segovia” is outstanding, regal, really captures him.
Berta: Very true, it depicts the trials through different periods of Segovia's life, and there are motifs that you can recognize and connect with different pieces that he played. Such an inventive piece, she was so inventive in her writing.
Brad: Had you heard any of this music before the album?
Berta: I only first heard this music as I was reading through it. I listened to a few recordings just to make sure that I wasn’t doing something terrible, but I wanted to get away from the sound and ideas of other players, and really wanted to connect with this music and with the composers myself. I have always felt that as a performer, I bring my own voice and my own universe into the music. I try to be honest, respectful, and play from the heart because what we bring to the music is also a reflection of us. One of the most important things for me is that I must feel the music, which reminds me of my friend and composer Alberto Rocco. When I asked him to write a piece for me, I told him that I have one condition, that the music had to absolutely touch my heart, and do you know what he did? He wrote for me a great piece, “Si no me toca el corazón,” if it does’t touch my heart!
Brad: When I hear you perform, your interpretations are quite dreamy and heartfelt. Could this be traced back to growing up in Paraguay?
Berta: I think that we are those places we visited in childhood. They are embedded in us with the light and the dark, with everything, and all the stories that we collected, they are part of us. If we want them to be a part of us, and we don't fight with it, I think it harmoniously comes to you. I would like to think that, yes, that where I come from is very much part of my music, and that makes me very happy to bring this sense of identity with me.
Brad: As a guy who grew up in Chicago and reading about Agustín Barrios over the years, it really seems like a much more poetic culture.
Berta: Yeah, it could be. I really don't know how to describe where I come from, because I feel it. I cannot put in words to what being a Paraguayan is. I just know that we are naive, we are always happy, and we never complain. We try to be resilient, we ask very little, sometimes Paraguay has to fight harder for the things that we believe in, but I believe it's a peaceful, resilient, a happy place that tries to connect with all those things, and this is how we see life.
Brad: How old were you when you first heard the music of Augustin Barrios?
Berta: I was probably 10. Yeah, 10 years old with my teachers at the time Felipe Souza and Violeta de Mestral. They were teaching the music of Carulli, Carcassi, and Barrios as soon as you were ready. The “Gavota al Estilo Antiguo” would have been the first Barrios piece I played, and after that it happened very fast.
Brad: What is it about his music that is so special for you?
Berta: I think it's the authenticity that I feel in his music. I don't think that he was pretentious at all, it just came so naturally to him. He was a virtuoso, he had a great understanding of music, he knew harmony, sometimes we criticize him for not being in more contact with the modern sounds of those days, but Barrios remained a romantic, he was very much a romantic composer, and that's who he was and he stayed true to it. Also, in the fact that he connected with the Latin tradition and incorporated so many different Latin rhythms in his music. It’s so unique and special, and I also think that to be Augustin Barrios you had to give away so much, he had to explore the world, going from place to place, meeting with so many different musicians, seeing so many towns, living their music, art, culture, and then being able to bring all of this back to his guitar music and deliver it with such honesty, this all makes him one of the greats.
Brad: What can you say about collaborating on the movie, Mangore?
Berta: This was very special for me. I am happy that there was a movie and that it celebrated the legacy of Agustin Barrios, and I'm very proud to have been the guitarist for this film. It honors the life of Agustin Barrios in the vision of the director, and I respect the vision of one artist honoring another artist. I am very happy with this project and my only regret is that there wasn’t more music by Barrios used in the film.
Brad: Should we be mad at Segovia?
Berta: No, no, no. Not at all. I think that Segovia was also true to himself, and he didn't like Barrios, or like what he represented. We should never force an artist to play or to like another person's music. My only regret is that I have heard stories of Segovia prohibiting his students from playing Barrios, and if true, this would be the only regretful thing, and that would be something that I would like to ask him.
The guitar world needs everybody, it needs many different voices, and I don't think that one artist necessarily steals the light of another. You can live happily ever after with your music and doing your thing and being true to your art without messing with the rest of the world. There is plenty of space for everyone, and we truly need as many voices as we can. I also try to think about what Segovia was doing, he was working to make the guitar a respected instrument, and he wanted to break with the folk traditions of the guitar in an effort to establish it as a respected classical instrument. He wanted music with larger forms written by the top composers of the day, I understand what he was trying to create and thankfully he did, but oh my God, don't we also need the Paraguayan Dance, the Maxixe, or the Choro? Of course, we do, because this is beautiful repertoire that brings so much joy to the audience. There's room for everybody. There's room.
Berta Rojas
Brad: Back to Legado for a moment, you commisioned all of this work from Candice Mowbray?
Berta: Candice came to see me about 15 years ago. She was studying with Glenn Caluda at the time, he went on a sabbatical, she needed a teacher and came to study with me. She showed up with all of this amazing music that I had never heard before. I remember thinking
"Oh, my God, how I am not familiar with this music?"
This had stayed in my mind since then, but I was always busy with other things. Eventually the right moment presented itself and we started to talk seriously about this project. All of the research and wisdom belongs to Candice, and I was fortunate enough to join in on the cause. I felt the music and the message so strongly, and it took us four years to materialize it. I also wanted to commission a piece because I wanted the album to not only feature Ida and Maria’s music, but also pieces inspired by them. I remember my friend Popi Spatocco, who is a very well-known director and composer in Argentina, he said that a tribute is only complete when both men and women celebrate the legacy of somebody, that if it is only women celebrating women, the tribute is not complete.
I thought about this, we didn’t have a strong piece dedicated to Maria Luisa Anido, and I decided that it would be very important for me to have Sergio Assad write a piece for her. I remember calling him to ask if he would, and without hesitation he was delighted to do so. He even told me that he had met her when she was a member of a jury at a competition the Assads took part in. He told me that she congratulated them for their virtuosic approach to the guitar and that she insisted they had “motors” in their hands. He reminisced about how kind she was to them and he was honored to be writing a piece in her memory.
Candice began to send him information about María Luisa, the travelling she had done, and she wrote a timeline of where Maria was and what she was doing throughout her life. As a result, Sergio decided to write about the travels of María Luisa. He wrote a four movement piece, Anido’s Portrait, which starts with “Chacarera,” a dance originating in Argentina, placing her there. The second movement is “Zapateado,” which places María Luisa in Spain. The third movement is “Barynya,” a Russian dance to reflect her time there, and then Sergio ushers her to Cuba with the fourth movement “Salsa.” His music is so inventive that every note of the motif represents a letter in her name, a musical cryptograph.
Brad: Sergio Assad is such a treasure for the modern guitar world.
Berta: He is, and if I had to tell you from the experience of working with him, he's a genius, and he is also so genuine. When I called him after I had won the Latin Grammy to let him know that he also won, he was already on the phone with his mom celebrating. What a sweet guy.
Brad: How long did it take for him to send you the piece?
Berta: I would say about eight months.
Brad: As you're first reading through it, what are you thinking?
Berta: I am thinking
"Oh my God, this is a great piece. I'm so in love with this."
It is a very difficult piece, and sometimes you work very hard on a piece and people don’t appreciate it, but Sergio’s piece is very beautiful and rewarding. This piece tells an important story, it is the complete package, and.a significant addition to the classical guitar repertoire and history.
Brad: Maria Luisa had quite a long career, did your paths ever cross?
Berta: No, I never met her personally. When I had my album half recorded, I called Maria Isabel Siewers who was probably one of Maria Luisa’s best students and I had a long conversation with her, she's such a nice person. I talked to her and told her about the project, asked her so many questions, and I felt much closer to Maria Luisa through her. Then, I went on a pilgrimage to Moron, Argentina where Maria Luisa was born. I visited her hometown and played a concert to a full house, people were waiting in line, and I played Anido’s Portrait. It was so special.
Berta Rojas at the 2022 Latin Grammy Awards
Brad: You've been nominated for a Latin Grammy a few times now, what was it like to finally be part of the celebration?
Berta: Over the years, I learned that you don't record an album for an award. You record an album because you feel the music and you feel the message immensely in your heart. So, with this album, I just went with it, tried to savor every moment and every step of the way, and being there at the celebration, at the awards, I just felt so special to be a part of the Latin Academy. I finally felt what it’s like to be embraced by your colleagues who sell millions of recordings, because for a classical musician this is very rare.
There is a very famous Mexican band named Mana. Mana's guitarist, Sergio Vallin plays classical guitar, he's a rock star, of course, but he plays classical too. He brought me a guitar that he had commissioned by a Spanish luthier, Juan Carlos Busquiel, and it's a copy of “La Leona” by Torres. It is made from a piece of spruce which comes from the Alhambra, and two guitars were made from this same piece of wood. One that belongs to him, and one that is mine. It has an inscription that says
"To Berta, the guitar that is a sister of Sergio Vallin’s guitar, No. 143."
Mine is 147, and we have sister guitars, the rock star and me. I think that this beautiful, yet simple story represents for me what it feels like to be a member of the community in which the art of classical guitar is respected, embraced, and loved. The same way that I respect and love all the genres that make up this scene, which is active, so effervescent and gives us so much joy.
Brad: What was the message of your Latin Grammy acceptance speech?
Berta: I wanted to thank the women who helped to make this all possible. The Guitar must have been extremely hard as a profession for Ida and Maria, and they certainly helped to establish a women’s place in the guitar world. In my speech I referred to myself as a young girl who also had to fight hard in order to be embraced and accepted within this art form. These women helped to pave the way for me, and for all the young women guitarists coming up today. I also have the privilege of bringing the first Latin Grammy Award to my country, this is such an incredible honor for me, and I thanked the academy for such an opportunity. Sometimes the stars do come into alignment and you embrace a dream for once, not every time, but it does happen, you actually get to embrace your dream.
Brad: Is music the same today as it was in, 2000?
Berta: I don't think that we as humanity are the same as we were before the pandemic. Of course, everybody has the right to live their own experiences, and I can only talk about myself, but I really think that we now know how fragile this is, and how fragile our lives are. I feel like enjoying every moment that I'm alive and that I'm able to make music. I think we learn a lot about ourselves through difficult moments, and I feel like through the quiet days of the pandemic I learned a lot. There was a lot of wisdom in all this silence, and even though it is getting to be behind us, I am continuing to learn and go back to this silence, but life is still in eye-to-eye contact, this is where life is. We need to realize that life might disappear and be shorter than we think, and that we need to reconnect with the essence of what we are and go deeper to the many layers that we have within.
Brad: Julian Bream passed away about a year ago. Do you have a Bream story?
Berta: No. Only that every time I listen to him, I say to myself
"How can you bring up so many colors out of the guitar? How can you do that?"
It was so easy for him. So much creativity. Amazing, amazing guitarist, and I just love him, and I love his heritage. He played in a very characteristic way, something that we should consider reconnecting with.
Brad: Just for fun, you have to use three words to describe the following.
Berta: Don't do that to me! That is going to be a really hard thing for me to do!
Brad: Okay, three words to describe Eduardo Fernandez.
Berta: Oh my God, genius. Super informed, and a virtuoso.
Brad: Three words for Agustín Barrios.
Berta: Conviction, love for the guitar, and not shy to bring his identity to the instrument.
Brad: Andrés Segovia.
Berta: The royalty of the guitar. A fighter, and a legend.
Brad: Sérgio Assad.
Berta: Simply great in every way.
Brad: Fernando Sor.
Berta: Genius, elegance, that true musician.
Brad: Mauro Giuliani.
Berta: Virtuoso, fun, colors.
Brad: Berta Rojas.
Berta: An honest musician who enjoys doing what she does and who loves the guitar.
Brad: Can you share some wisdom with the up-and-coming generation?
Berta: Be true to yourself. Don't listen to anybody, listen to yourself, be true to yourself, and listen to your heart. The world needs every voice, and the guitar needs us. The guitar is an instrument that calls for intimacy, and the connection is still in a hall with an audience, so leave your phones and go find them.