Tango Night at Dante - did you know....
Latin Grammy Award winner bassist and composer Pedro Giraudo is among the most compelling tango artists today. After two decades performing with the most important interpreters of tango, Pedro Giraudo debuted his own Tango Orchestra at Lincoln Center’s Midsummer Night Swing in July 2015 and since then has become an active cultural ambassador of this beautiful and passionate music of his native Argentina.
We had the great pleasure to improvise to 3 songs in his arrangements. Thank you Natalia and Toby for the videos.
Did you know that names of D'Arienzo, Di Sarli, Troilo, Pugliese, Biagi, Canaro, Calo, Donato, D'Agostino, Tanturi sound Italian for a reason. They are coming from their Italian descendants.
Juan d'Arienzo (December 14, 1900 – January 14, 1976) was an Argentine tango musician, also known as "El Rey del Compás" (King of the Beat). He was a violinist, band leader, and composer. He was son of Italian immigrants and used more modern arrangements and instrumentation; his popular group produced hundreds of recordings.
Carlos di Sarli (January 7, 1903 – January 12, 1960) was an Argentine tango musician, orchestra leader, composer and pianist. Born at 511 Buenos Aires street (now Yrigoyen) in the city of Bahía Blanca, located in Southern Argentina. He was the eighth child of the Italian immigrant Miguel Di Sarli, the owner of a gunsmith store, and Serafina Russomano, daughter of the tenor singer Tito Russomano.
Aníbal Troilo was born on July 11, 1914, to Felisa Bagnoli and Aníbal Troilo, in the well-known barrio of Abasto[1]. His father nicknamed him "Pichuco", an alteration of the Neapolitan (Italian) "picciuso", meaning "weepy", or "crybaby".
Osvaldo Pedro Pugliese (Buenos Aires, December 2, 1905 – July 25, 1995) was an Argentine tango musician. He developed dramatic arrangements that retained strong elements of the walking beat of salon tango but also heralded the development of concert-style tango music. 'Pugliese' is an Italian Habitational surname, meaning "from Puglia".
Francisco Canaro (November 26, 1888 – December 14, 1964) was an Uruguayan violinist and tango orchestra leader. His parents, Italians, emigrated to Uruguay, and later – when Francisco Canaro was less than 10 years old, they emigrated to Buenos Aires (Argentina) in the late nineteenth century. Canaro was born in San José de Mayo, Uruguay, in 1888.
Astor Pantaleón Piazzolla (Spanish pronunciation: [pjaˈsola], Italian pronunciation: [pjatˈtsɔlla] was born in Mar del Plata, Argentina, in 1921, the only child of Italian immigrant parents, Vicente "Nonino" Piazzolla and Assunta Manetti.[2] His paternal grandfather, a sailor and fisherman named Pantaleo (later Pantaleón) Piazzolla, had immigrated to Mar del Plata from Trani, a seaport in the southeastern Italian region of Apulia, at the end of the 19th century.[3] His mother was the daughter of two Italian immigrants from Lucca in Tuscany.[4]
Ricardo Tanturi (27 January 1905 – 24 January 1973) (nickname: El caballero del tango) was a piano player, composer and bandleader (tango musical genre) in Argentina during the Golden Age of tango.[1] born of Italian parents in Buenos Aires, at Barracas neighborhood, one of the poorest and most vital areas in the city surrounded by the now foul-smelling Riachuelo (small river) where boats and barges used to sail.
Edgardo Donato like many other outstanding artists, was the son of an Italian couple. Ernesto Donato, his father, was born in 1871 and played the mandolin. Later he switched to violoncello and until the end of his life music was his passion. He finally conducted a chamber orchestra in Montevideo.
His mother was, Egilda Cafagna, she had nine children, of which three were musicians. Ascanio, cellist and composer; Osvaldo, pianist and composer and Edgardo Felipe Valerio, violinist.