Osvaldo Schwartz

Osvaldo Schwartz

artist

After spending the 1970s as a rock bassist, hippie percussionist and punk guitarist, Osvaldo Schwartz landed in the 1980s as a new wave multi-instrumentalist musician. In 1983 he founded Officine Schwartz, a band focused on multimedia research and experimentation about the aesthetics and history of industrial civilization. He gave particular importance to the research on noise, using self-built instruments made from scrap materials, dance, 8mm projections, videos, industrial sounds derived from mechanical machines, Futurist graphics. With Officine Schwartz he produced compositions able to create contrasts between sounds and emotions. He was the director, the composer, the author, the multi-instrumentalist and the luthier. Officine Schwartz never wanted to follow a specific musical genre as they thought it was necessary to constantly evolve in order to extend the research. Thus Osvaldo Schwartz attended choral singing courses, learned to play the trumpet and studied the orchestral form to found the marching band known as Banda D’asfalto. In the early 90’s with twenty players of reed horns, brass instruments, accordion, bagpipes, drums and a choir, he created shows and renewed the band Officine Semoventi. He delved into popular musical culture, both local and from Eastern and Northern Europe, invented the instrument called Tubicordo and together with the band he began an ethno-industrial research. At the end of the century the band was reduced but still it retained the same characteristics: Tubicordo, metals, electronics and noise. In 2015 Officine Schwartz celebrated their 30th anniversary with an event entitled From Here to Rust, a documentary, and a massive rhythmic performance. The last trio concert was performed in August 2019. In addition to the commitment with Officine Schwartz, Osvaldo also performed as a musician in The Pirate Ship busker company and in Teatro Sezione Aurea with the choreographer Eugenio De Mello and produced soundtracks for Davide Ferrario’s films. In 2018 he started the project Convertible Blues with the guitarist Marco Valietti and the ever-present stainless Tubicordo.