Symphony Silicon Valley takes to tango

for season-closing program



Courtesy of Carlos Vieu

Famed Argentine conductor Carlos Vieu returns to Symphony Silicon Valley to lead a
tango-fueled program June 3-4 in San Jose.
By ANDREW GILBERT | Correspondent
PUBLISHED: May 30, 2017 at 11:00 am | UPDATED: May 30, 2017 at 12:15 pm
For its season closer Symphony Silicon Valley didn’t decide to just spice up its
program with a little tango. In deepening the ensemble’s relationship with
Argentine conductor Carlos Vieu and his countryman, New York City-based
composer and bandoneon master J.P. Jofre, SSV is taking a deep dive into the
tempestuous and emotionally wrought style more associated with nightclubs
and dance studios than concert halls with two performances at the California
Theatre this weekend.

Spearheaded by Astor Piazzolla, the nuevo tango movement long ago

transported tango onto concert stages, but his dramatic works are usually
performed by small ensembles, like violinist Gidon Kremer’s sensational
Kremerata Baltica. The centerpiece of SSV’s “Misa Tango” program is the
large scale “Symphonic Tango Suite,” a portmanteau work made up of five of
the most representative tangos by Piazzolla and fellow innovator Horacio
Salgán, who died last August at the age of 100.
“Each one in his own way has been the maximum exponent in the evolution of
the genre,” Vieu wrote in an email from Buenos Aires. “Salgán, the most
exquisite composer of all, is the king of virtuosity, syncopation and
counterpoint. On Astor’s side, perhaps the most international tanguero after
Gardel, we can see the influence of baroque music, and composers like
Ginastera and others with European roots.”

Vieu made his SSV debut in the fall of 2014 conducting Carl Orff’s “Carmina
Burana” and the world premiere of Jofre’s bandoneon concerto “Tango
Movements,” a “sweepingly romantic, elegantly crafted and rhythmically
charged” work, Richard Scheinin wrote in his Mercury News review.

Vieu isn’t interested in rehashing the longstanding and still simmering

controversy amongst Argentine composers and musicians over the authenticity
of Piazzolla’s work, “whether his music should be considered tango or
something entirely new with a tango twist,” he writes. Steeped in the folkloric
tango tradition, Piazzolla and Salgán have both earned international recognition
as “two ground-braking artists with traditional roots whose musical ideas
transcended their own time period.”

Vieu credits the great Argentine arranger José Carli with transforming
Piazzolla and Salgán’s chamber pieces into the orchestral “Symphonic Tango
Suite,” arrangements that have been played by orchestras like the Berliner
Philharmoniker conducted by Daniel Barenboim. Of course, a program like this
can only succeed with a master of the accordion-like bandoneon, tango’s
definitive instrument.
Acclaimed bandoneon player J.P. Jofre is a featured solist in Symphony Silicon
Valley’s “Misa Tango” program. Courtesy of J.P. Jofre
In Jofre, who was born in the regional capital San Juan in 1983, SSV has a
featured soloist with a singular array of skills, a conservatory-trained artist
whose “musical instincts, expressive power and the way he transforms himself
when he is on stage speak to a level of maturity that goes beyond his age.”

If one piece seems out of place on the “Misa Tango” program it’s Nino Rota’s
“Suite from the Ballet La Strada.” Best known for his celebrated film scores,
the Italian composer came into Vieu’s orbit via an early stint as a conductor in
Mar del Plata, an Argentine city populated mostly by Italian immigrants and
their descendants, “where the orchestra would perform every year as a tribute
to Italian patriotic festivities,” Vieu writes.

“While it is true that Rota is mostly associated with movies and Fellini,
‘Strada’s’ music is comparable to the great orchestral suites for the variety of
resources, climates and descriptions highlighted in it. For me, conducting this
suite is not much different from conducting ‘Petroushka’ in terms of concept
and the level required for its preparation.”

The concert culminates with the Symphony Silicon Valley Chorale joining
Jofre and the orchestra on “Misa Tango,” Luis Bacalov’s contribution to the
growing phenomenon of the tango mass. Starting with Ariel Ramírez’s 1964
“Criolla Mass,” which rushed through the door opened by the Second Vatican
Council to vernacular language, several other composers have explored the
form, including Martín Palmeri.

In many ways “Misa Tango” feels like an extension of Bacalov’s acclaimed

film work (the Argentine-born Italian composer earned an Academy Award for
his “Il Postino” score). “Bacalov as a composer is very cinematic,” Jofre says.
“The Misa has many beautiful moments and some really gorgeous melodies.
It’s very interesting to hear the choir, the big symphony and the bandoneon in a
different context.”

More than anything, Jofre is thrilled to expand his relationship with the SSV,
an ensemble that earned his unstinting gratitude and love for bringing his
bandoneon concerto to life so vividly. “The first time I worked with them, I fell
in love with the sound of the orchestra,” he says. “It was one of the best
performances of my career.”

Contact Andrew Gilbert at jazzscribe@aol.com.

SYMPHONY SILICON VALLEY

Presents the program “Misa Tango”

When: 8 p.m. June 3, 2:30 p.m. June 4

Where: California Theatre, 345 S. First St., San Jose
Tickets: $45-$90; 408-286-2600, www.symphonysiliconvalley.org