Julián Restrepo in Conversation with Marina Moevs

MM: Can you tell us briefly about yourself, your background? How did you come to the classical guitar and how did your studies bring you to Germany?

JR: I come from Bogotá, Colombia and I’m 33 years old. My father is a talented amateur guitarist so I grew up listening to him playing classical guitar. He also had a decent CD collection, so I had the chance to listen to a lot of classical as well as flamenco and Brazilian Music. That is where my interest in music started to develop.

At the beginning I actually wanted to learn the oboe, but it was a very expensive instrument and it was difficult to find a teacher for it at the time. I then started to play the guitar, since we already had one at home. My father gave me my first guitar lessons. Later on, I had a private guitar teacher nearby my house, who was not only a guitarist, but also a passionate guitar builder. He was able to transmit his love for the instrument and music in general.

When I finished school, I started studying guitar at a university in Bogotá, but found myself wanting to go abroad. By chance, I met a violinist who was studying at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln (music and dance conservatory in Cologne) and he encouraged me to audition for the entrance examinations there. Six months later I found myself in Cologne. I received my bachelor’s degree at the Musikhochschule in Cologne and afterwards, I went to Hochschule für Musik und Theater München (music and theatre conservatory in Munich) to complete my master’s degree.

Here in Germany I have had the privilege of studying with renowned guitarists Hubert Käppel and Franz Hálasz. I now live again in Cologne where I feel at home.

Another reason I felt Germany was the right place for me to learn as much as I could about music was (because of) the possibility of listening to the greatest musicians of our time on a daily basis. Prior to COVID-19 restrictions, I would sometimes go to concerts three to four times a week—Cecilia Bartoli, Pat Metheny, Marcus Miller, Grigory Sokolov, and the Berlin Philharmonic—to name a few.

MM: The vernissage for my drawings at galerie PLUTO also featured musicians performing music by my father, Robert Moevs, or music related to his music. For that event which took place in 2019 you performed “All in Twilight” by Takemitsu. Why did you pick this piece and what do you think is its relationship to my father’s music?

JR: When I was invited to play at the vernissage, I listened to the works I could find from your father, Robert Moevs. I found a great orchestral and choral piece called “Attis,” which in some passages reminded me of some orchestral pieces from Takemitsu. But at the end, what inspired me to play “All in Twilight” at the vernissage were your drawings.

Tōru Takemitsu based his work “All in Twilight” on paintings by German artist Paul Klee bearing the same name. The light scarcity of the late afternoon and evening hides things from us. Shapes are unclear to the viewer, colours and contours are diffuse.

Many of your drawings displayed at galerie Pluto used light to “hide” the landscape or scenario that was being shown to the viewer. As if too much light was blinding the person contemplating the scene. One is left to guess and fill the gap of what light hides from us.

Juxtaposing this idea of darkness as well as light is a way to put a veil on a scenario or landscape and was for me an interesting link between the music and the drawings.

In these four pieces, Takemitsu also uses rich harmonies that create very colourful landscapes. It is contemplative music, which I thought would also work well with the work being exhibited at galerie Pluto. In all four pieces I find there is alway an element of surprise; as if one would suddenly discover a shape or recognise something that was hiding and at times became visible.

MM: You have very recently performed “All in Twilight” so it is clearly a part of your repertoire. What does this piece mean to you?

JR: I love Takemitsu’s music. Fortunately he composed many pieces for guitar. With “All in Twilight” there is a great deal of space to explore the different colours that the guitar has to offer. One of the properties of the guitar is that it allows the interpreter/player to explore and produce so many different sonorities. Takemitsu’s piece is rather challenging to play but definitely rewarding. It is difficult to attain the calmness that the piece needs while dealing with its technical difficulties and at the same time not sound boring.

MM: Can you tell us about the experience of playing “All in Twilight” at galerie PLUTO?

JR: I really enjoyed playing in the galerie PLUTO space with its view of the Rhine and also in an exhibition setting with your work. The audience was very receptive, which is not always a given when performing 20th and 21st century classical music by composers such as Takemitsu, Frank Martin, Magnus Lindberg or Robert Moevs.

I look forward to learning “Echo” for solo guitar composed by your father. I hope there will be a follow-up concert where I could perform it.