Although 2021 has been another trying year with the ongoing pandemic, it's been a very productive one for me with various projects I've been cooking up for 2022, so I'm really looking forward to the new year and sharing them! Wishing everyone peace and love.
Updated: Jan 10
Echoes Festival is back with a vengeance this Autumn with a special Astor Piazzolla centenray edition!
This year, I'm excited to announce a special edition of Echoes Festival celebrating the centenary of the birth of Argentine composers Astor Piazzolla and Ariel Ramírez, curated by me for ILAMS. We're proud to be joining forces with the Argentine Embassy in the hosting of the official UK 2021 Piazzolla celebrations, alongside our permanent Festival partner, the Instituto Cervantes.
The Festival - our biggest yet - offers 21 events taking place across November and Dec, with a mixture of live and online content for you to enjoy whatever your location or level of lockdown. For the first time we're going global to bring you several events filmed in Buenos Aires, including various special events held at the CCK (Centro Cultural Kirchner), Argentina's premier arts complex. We're honoured to be featuring various artists who knew and collaborated with Piazzolla personally, such as Néstor Marconi, Amelita Baltar, José Angel Trelles, Roberto Aussel and Eduardo Vassallo, as well as some of the leading young Argentine artists of the new generation, including Jaquelina Livieri, Leonardo Pastore, Natalia González, Gianneo Quartet, Darío Barozzi, Amalia Pérez, and the Quinteto Astor Piazzolla.
As well as concerts, we have a plethora of other events for you to dip into: catch one of our virtual film screenings, such as Daniel Rosenfeld's recent award-winning documentary on Piazzolla, The Years of the Shark; or come along to our beginner's tango lesson followed by a 'tango tea' - a vintage British milonga, 1913-stye. We also showcase Piazzolla's film music whilst paying hommage to the Argentine film director, Fernando Solanas - a close collaborator with Piazzolla who passed away in 2020.
Our 'tango-tea' -stye milonga is just one of the ways we're exploring the impact of Piazzolla, tango and Argentine music specifically on British culture. In a related event, It Takes Tea to Tango, singer Patricia Hammond and multi-instrumentalist Matt Redman delve into the early European tangos of the 1910s-1940s in a special edition of their informal weekly Living Room Requests series. And pre-eminent Argentine pianist, Lilia Salsano, bravely navigates her way through the 'tangos' in the British Music Collection by 20th century and living British composers, in an online recital filmed in her native province of Santa Fé.
As ever, the Festival also offers a range of educational events: our Piazzolla symposium brings together some of the world's leading experts on the composer; we present two special instalments of our monthly podcast series, Journeys Through the Labyrinth with presenter Ray Picot, on Piazzolla and Ramírez respectively, and our popular Come&Sing event is also back, this time in remote format and led by the illustrious Argentine conductor Mariana Rosas, who will be coaching us through Ariel Ramírez's colourful Misa criolla.
Check out this year's full programme at echoesfestival.co.uk.
See you there!
Well done to my student Maisie, who has just passed her Grade 5 Piano with distinction! A very well-deserved result.
