Music Chamber

This album of tango music features music by the established composers Astor Piazolla and Alberto Ginastera, contemporary British Composers Graham Lynch and Michael Omer (who accompanies on piano), Dutch composer Peter Heeren and 'Strictly Composing' competition winners Michael Phillips and Julian Pombo. The main accompaniest on the album is pianist Sophia Rahman, who will play at the launch concert along with other guest intrumentalists who appear on the album.

All photographs are © Siân Philipps and may not be reproduced without permission.

Siân says of her upcoming CD:

"My love of Tango began when I first danced it in Los Angeles in 2008. The passionate melodies barely contained by a strict dance structure captured my heart and inspired this album. What is Tango? Scholars dispute whether its origin and ethnic roots are Latin American or European. Until the Argentine composer Ástor Piazzolla elevated it to the appreciation of 'classical' audiences, tango remained in the brothels, popular music and dance halls of the early 20th century. This changed when, on his teacher Ginastera's suggestion, Piazzolla went to Paris in 1954 to study with Nadia Boulanger (Ravel, Bartok & Stravinsky's teacher). Faced with an identity crisis and struggling to find his own voice, a shamefaced Piazzolla recalled admitting to Boulanger that his main instrument was the Bandoneon on which he played Tangos. She ordered him to play, and after a few bars said "You idiot, that's Piazzolla!" And so he said he took all the music he composed, "ten years of his life, and sent it to hell in two seconds." Using techniques learnt from her, Piazzolla combined classical structures with jazz harmonies with the passion of tango that took it out of the brothels and into the concert halls. My three year long quest has been to find out if Tango's development ended with him. I hope the eclectic range of composers on this disc (some established, others cutting edge contemporaries and young winners of a competition I proves Tango is alive and well!"