investigates singer Ann Liebeck’s plans to celebrate the tango master on his centenary…tonight:
Astor Piazzolla took the dance music of Argentina to a world stage. On the centenary of his birth, a show devised by soprano
Ann Liebeck,
Violetta’s Last Tango, salutes his genius.
Every style of music has its visionaries – artists who go beyond the limits of a genre to explore new sound worlds. Jazz has Charlie Parker and Miles Davis for starters; pop has Lennon-McCartney and maybe Brian Wilson or Bowie or Kraftwerk – but I’ll leave you to argue that one.
In the sensual, rhythmic realm of Argentinian tango there is one undisputed master – Astor Piazzolla who in the 1950s and ’60s emerged as king of nuevo tango. Incorporating jazz and classical harmonies and enlisting new instruments – saxophones, the electric guitar – he raised the music born in the backstreets of Buenos Aires to a new level of artistry. Like Parker or Miles, Piazzolla was initially scorne