Viva tango!

MORE ABOUT THE MUSIC
Letters from Argentina, composed by Lalo Schifrin, was premiered in 2005 at a performance of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. The work was presented soon after by the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the La Jolla SummerFest, and Chamber Music Northwest, which joined the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in commissioning the work. This commission gave birth to the program Viva Tango!, which pairs the work with music of Ástor Piazzolla.

Letters from Argentina
“Like the clear sky, like the rain, like the clouds, music has always been part of the Argentinean atmosphere, ever present in the literature, in the visual arts, and in the history of the country.” These words of composer Lalo Schifrin vividly describe the inspiration for his Letters from Argentina. In these eight vignettes, the composer weaves the nostalgic sounds of his childhood into a wistful musical impression. Schifrin describes recreating an “unreal past in which a memory persists and invites us to a journey full of promises and dreams.” He draws from the auditory imprints of having grown up in the vibrant sonic landscape of his homeland – his father’s violin playing, the drums of indigenous peoples, the impassioned strains of tango that emanate from forbidden cafés and radio speakers, the festive dance music that saturates the streets of entire villages and barrios, the faint strumming of the gauchos’ guitars on tranquil evenings in the pampas – and fashions an imagined reawakening of these experiences. (From the program note by Patrick Campbell Jankowski.)

Piazzolla Tangos
Including... Michaelangelo 70 ∙ Porteño ∙ Adiós Nonino ∙ La muerte del Angel ∙ Oblivion ∙ Libertango

Encore
The ensemble has been known to extend the performance with a delightful rendition of Schifrin’s Theme from Mission Impossible.