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Ernesto Acher
Ernesto Acher, born on October 9, 1939, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, is a composer, multi-instrumentalist and orchestral conductor. He was a member of Les Luthiers between 1971 and 1986, where he worked as songwriter, actor, instrument designer, choir master, singer and played over thirty different instruments. Before leaving the group he was involved in some individual projects as composer, including a soundtrack, two movements for clarinet and strigs, a string sextet and a symphonic poem for viola and orchestra. From 1987 to 1992 he co-founded what would become 'La Banda Elastica', where he composed, arranged, played piano, synthesiser, saxophone, vibraphone and trombone. Then he had a stint as stand-up comedian for about eighteen months (starting on May 1993), and then became a full-time orchestral conductor, a labour he still executes currently.
As a kid, he studied piano and then moved on to clarinet when he became interested in jazz during his adolescence. Later on, he'd return to piano and learn notions of classical music as well. After secondary school, he graduated from college as an architect and in January 1971 he quit his job in order to become a full-time musician. A friend of his, pianist Alba Rozen, was part of the famous choir 'Nueve de Camara', conducted by Carlos Lopez Puccio; Acher had also seen a recital by Les Luthiers and had visited another of its members, Daniel Rabinovich, to congratulate him. In Mar del Plata (where he was on holiday and they were on tour) they formally met and he became close friend with Marcos Mundstock, who was to take a year off, and proposed him as replacement.
Initially, Acher's contract was that of a wild card, so to speak: he stepped in for Les Luthiers' pianist Carlos Nunez Cortes during the songs he was required to sing or do a more theatrical or comical performance; he also replaced Mundstock as emcee, and took over Gerardo Masana's role composing for informal instruments and playing the contrachitarrone (a hybrid of guitar and cello). At the time, several group members liked jazz but none of them had enough experience in the area, so his first job as composer was to score a brand new jazz piece for Les Luthiers to perform on stage using mostly self-made instruments. Acher penned, thus, 'Manuela's Blues', where every instrument used was informal except for hi-hats and acoustic guitars.
Related websites
Les Luthiers 40 anos: Ernesto Acher - Nunez Cortes - 7/8
ErnestoAcher.com
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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Ernesto Acher
