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Nanette Shaw
Events Explore and Perform Music of Astor Piazzolla The late Astor Piazzolla reinvented tango music, not only giving the form new life but generating a world-wide following for his music. From March 7 through 13, Pablo Ziegler, Piazzolla’s pianist and principal protégé, will be in residence at the CUNY Graduate Center headlining a festival-conference focused on Piazzolla’s New Tango music. Public events will include a concert, master classes, a lecture, and a symposium, presented under the overall title of "Tango, Bandoeon, Piazzolla," Concert: On March 10, Ziegler and his Quintet for the New Tango, featuring Hector Del Curto on Bandoneon, will present a concert in the Proshansky Auditorium in The Graduate Center’s new campus at 365 Fifth Avenue. Tickets are $35 ($15 with CUNY or American Musicological Society ID). For ticket information, call 1-212-817-8215 or e-mail at continuinged@gc.cuny.edu. Master Classes, Lecture, and Symposium: On March 7, 9, and 13, from 6 to 8 p.m., Ziegler will head up three master classes. The classes are free and open to the public but those wishing to attend this or any of the following events are encouraged to RSVP at 1-212-817-8215. On March 9, from 3 to 5 p.m., Maria Dunkel of the Freie Universität, Berlin will deliver a lecture entitled "How the Bandoneon Conquered the Tango." Preceding the concert on March 10, there will be an all-day symposium on the life, work, and impact of Astor Piazzolla and his music. Participants will include Pablo Aslan of the Quintet for the New Tango; Allan Atlas, Distinguished Professor of Music at the CUNY Graduate Center; and five other international scholars and music critics. The Piazzolla symposium will be held in morning and afternoon sessions, 10 am-12:30 p.m. and 2-4:30 p.m. The classes, lecture, and symposium will all be held in The Graduate Center’s Baisley Powell Elebash Recital Hall, 365 Fifth Avenue. Pablo Ziegler is the leading New Tango artist in the world today, having served as the pianist for Astor Piazzolla’s band for ten years during the 1980s and early 1990s. Argentine-born, Piazzolla virtually reinvented the bordello music of his home country, giving it a new sound and a new lease on life. "By giving the tango the precision of European chamber music and the elasticity of North American jazz, Piazzolla created a distinctively Argentine art and took it around the world," wrote the Washington Post. So successful has the Piazzolla-driven rediscovery and revivification of tango music been that diverse international stars such as Yo-Yo Ma, Gidon Kremer, the Kronos Quartet, and John Adams have been drawn to it in their live and recorded work. No musician alive today is in a better position to interpret, elaborate on, and carry on the tradition of Piazzolla and the New Tango than Pablo Ziegler. Los Angeles Times music critic Mark Swed said, " Universal as New Tango has become, there exists an authentic Piazzolla style, and one musician better than any other embodies it now. Pianist Pablo Ziegler... the interpreter closest to the style and also a great artist in his own right... He is cool, understated and makes everything look easy and natural... Just as a really suave tango dancer seems not to move with feet but on wheels, Ziegler skates the keyboard." An Argentine native, Ziegler, 53, is the son of a tango violinist. He first began playing classical piano at the age of four and by his mid-teens was playing public concerts. Increasingly influenced by jazz, Ziegler was eventually asked to join Piazzolla’s New Tango Quintet, with which he toured the world and further refined his eclectic take on tango music. Known as "Jazzero" (Jazz man), Ziegler worked toward creating a new tango style which replaces the traditional violin with a focus on piano, guitar, and of course, bandoneon, the accordion-like instrument that Piazzolla himself played. Ziegler’s work may be heard on over a dozen recordings, including his recent pairing with pianist Emmanuel Ax for Los Tangueros (Sony Classical). Ziegler has also composed music for film, television, and the theatre. This is believed to be the first time that an American university has devoted its scholarly and artistic resources to a festival-conference on the tango and to a scholarly treatment of Astor Piazzolla’s music. The event is being organized by The Graduate Center’s Ph.D. Program in Music — ranked 4th in the country and first in New York City and State -- the school’s Center for the Study of Free-Reed instruments, and the Learning Partnership -- a new Graduate Center initiative in continuing education and public programs. The Greater New York Chapter of the American Musicological Society, The Graduate Center’s Barry S. Brook Center for Music Research and Documentation and Center for the Humanities, and the Simon H. Rifkind Center for the Humanities and the Arts and the Department of Music at CUNY’s City College are all cosponsors. The Graduate Center is the doctorate-granting institution of the largest urban university in the U.S. The only consortium of its kind in the nation, The Graduate Center draws its faculty of more than 1,700 members mainly from the CUNY senior colleges and cultural and scientific institutions throughout New York City. According to a recent National Research Council report, more than a third of The Graduate Center's rated programs rank among the nation's top 20 at public and private institutions, nearly a quarter are among the top ten when compared to publicly supported institutions alone, and more than half are among the top five programs at publicly supported institutions in the northeast. Further information on The Graduate Center's programs and activities can be found on its web site at: www.gc.cuny.edu. |