Rotterdam Tango Transformations

2012 will be the year of transformations. A lot of things are changing at the moment and it seems that old patterns are not functional anymore in personal lifes and in society. The Rotterdam tango Transformations festival will look back and forward at the same time. Without the roots of tango we cannot make a vision of what awaits us in the future. So within classical tango festival structures we... will offer new ways and forms in tango like contact tango, Yoga and tango and seminars based on colours of our chackras. It is the first tangofestival in 2012 with a strong focus on the transformations that will take place in 2012 and we will focus on connections and deepened experiences using tango as a container for heart-contact, sharing and personal expression.

The festival also celebrates two main features of Rotterdam : the harbour and brilliant architecture and a lively world music scene and well known tango education at CODARTS. As a result of the latter the festival will have a strong live tangomusic input. During this event the semi finals of the concurso del Ocho will take place in WMDC, in coorperation with CODARTS Rotterdam, section Argentine tango. All international participants of this contest will play live at the festival.

The Urban quality is symbolised by Katendrecht, which has a history like Buenos Aires where sailors gathered in bars and visited illegal prostitution, a melting place of immigrants from different parts of the world. Katendrecht is now an Urban hotspot and develops rapidly, but still with the character and atmosphere from the recent past. The saturday main salon of the festival and tangocafe's will take place here, and the friday salon in CODART's WMDC/Grounds.

The festival is supported by the existing tangoschools in Rotterdam Cuartito Azul and TangoWorks and we work together to make a new atractive initiative in the city with the strongest vibrant artistic scene in the Netherlands at the moment: Rotterdam.
Programme

Friday january 20
Performance by OTRA (Orquesta Tanguera de Rotterdam Integrada por Alumnos)
WMDC / GROUNDS and Tango Salon 20.00 - 01.00
DJ Giggio Giovanni ( Moskow )

Afterpary/marathon 01.00 - 06.00

Saturday january 21
Seminars by ISMAEL LUDMAN
Ezequiel Sanucci & Lydia Muller
and tango & Yoga by Cathrin Alisch
Semi Finals of Concurso del Ocho with 4 international tango ensembles

SALON with Orquesta Tipica Budapest (http://orquestatipicabudapest.com/ )
and tango performances 20.00 - 01.00
De kantine, Theater Walhalla, Katendrecht
( DJ Jens Dorr , Koln )

Afterpary/Marathon 01.00 - 06.00

sunday january 22
seminars & tangocafe with World Music Gathering
14.00 - 23.00

more info coming soon via
www.rotterdamtangotransformations.nl

Introduction of a semi final during ZANGO festival Haarlem september 10

A Semi final will be introduced for the Concurso in Haarlem during the ZANGO Festival. More info about the assignment, the jury and conditions will be published on this website soon. The info will be also available through the ZANGO WEBSITE. The concurso is currently looking for more parters for semi finals throughout the Netherlands.

Tango music Competition
Doble Ocho organised in 2008 the first Concurso del Ocho, the Ocho. This new tangomusic competition is an initiative of Kunstburo and Tango Centre El Corte and is organised by kunstburo Lucien Lecarme. It started during the fifth Int. tangofestival Doble Ocho in march 2008. The competition is for amateur musicians, music students and semi-professional Argentinian tangomusic groups and musicians worldwide. Concurso del Ocho want's to stimulate the creation of new innovative arrangements of existing compositions, and the development of "new projects ".

Luis Stazo : Una Vida Feliz

We meet in '9 De Julio', according to owner Vittoria the only real Argentinean restaurant in Berlin. When I arrive Luis and Manuela Stazo are sitting at a small table in the bar section of this thoughtfully decorated restaurant, full of blue and white, and paintings created by Vittoria herself. It is a big contrast to its neighbourhood of grey buildings, gas stations, bed shops and other businesses plastered with sale-signs in NeuKöln, one of the poorer parts of Berlin.

I shake the old hand of the maestro, and notice that his fingers are bent, as if he were continuously holding a bandoneón. After a lifetime of playing this instrument this is a symbolic characteristic of Luis Stazo, one of the old masters of the Guardia Vieja, founder of the world-famous Sexteto Mayor, and still playing with his own Stazo Mayor, albeit only for performances in Europe.

Luis has found a place to rest in Berlin where he shares domestic bliss with his wife Manuela – after a lifetime of constant traveling, hotel rooms, playing and more playing. In response to a question about the differences between his life in Berlin and his life in Buenos Aires, Manuela answers that he actually never saw Buenos Aires very much during the time that he was (in theory) based there, being away on tour almost 11 months of the year.

His musical story starts at the amazingly young age of 9 years old when he already listens to the music of Troilo on the radio. He asks his father whether he can start to learn to play the bandoneón, and his old man decided to send him to a friend, a teacher at the Chopin conservatory just 50 meters away from his home. There he starts to learn piano and music theory, but not the bandoneón. But he soon finds the teacher he needs: José Liberteda. Here his successful life as tango bandoneón player starts, forming Sexteto Mayor in 1955 after working as an arranger for stars like Angel Vargas. Sexteto Mayor conquers the world, and Luis performs in front of stars like Pablo Picasso, Princess Diana, Shirley McClain, Prince Rainier of Monaco and also wins a Grammy award for Latin American Music. A quarrel with the second bandoneón player in the group led to him breaking with the Sexteto and after meeting Manuela in 2001, he got married in 2006, having already been living in Berlin since 2005. Tired of traveling, Luis took a break of 5-6 years from 2001 then formed his trio and later his sexteto Stazo Mayor, exclusively for concerts in Europe.

In my conversation with Luis, he offers the moment that he stopped smoking as being a key point in his life. He describes the life as a musician where friends would always ask him for a cigarette, or he gets a smoke from them. But when in 1986 a doctor discovered some heart problems, he was forced to stop. He then shows me a small sudoko book in his left pocket which is now, as he puts it, his ‘little smoke’


During the Berlin International Tango Festival 2009 I coincidentally booked into the same hotel as Luis Stazo and Alberto Podesta. In the morning, I hear the old gentlemen talk at a table right under my room in the garden of the hotel. Later that afternoon I am witness to the reunion of the two old maestros and Alfredo Marcucci. When Luis sees Alfredo coming out of the taxi, he shouts: ‘My Alfredissimo’ and the old men kiss each other on the cheeks (see video).
For Marcucci, Luis is young Luisissimo, and even now Luis speaks of Alfredissimo with a big smile on his face. Manuela tells me that they were already playing together at the age of eight! Their lives as active musicians divided them, but they kept in touch with regular phone calls. Also, Alfredo Podesta hadn’t seen Luis for more than 10 years when he sees him again in front of Hotel Beethoven in Berlin. That night, they played together on the Berlin Tango Festival, for what turned out to be the last time before the passing away of Marcucci in 2010.
© 2011 Lucien Lecarme



video of Luis Stazo meeting Podesta and Marcucci in Berlin , 2009 during the Int tangofestival Berlin.

to read the complete article, get the latest 2011 Doble Ocho newspaper or download it here

April 22, special Tangobazaar hosts Tangomusic Contest, tangofusion JAM, tangocafe, movies and a tangomarket

Nijmegen’s Kolpinghuis will host a special ‘Mercado de Tango’ or ‘Tango Bazaar’ on Friday April 22. It’s all about tango that Friday of the Festival, with the Music Contest, the Tango Music Fusion JAM, two special tango movies, a tangocafé with DJ James Bates, and a special room filled with all kinds of tango related stuff. Wine tasting, shoes, clothes, music CDs/DVDs and much more.

The finals of the Tangomusic contest will this year be boosted by the presence of tango maestro Luis Stazo. This will be an honour for us all, and a great opportunity for participating musicians to get some tips from one of the old maestros (founder of Sexteto Mayor); still alive, still playing! Look out for an article about Luis in the 2011 edition of the Doble Ocho festival paper, packed with personal anecdotes from his long and fascinating life.

One of the aims of the Tango Bazaar is to bring as many tango musicians as possible under one roof, so that the 2011 edition of the tango Music Fusion JAM will be packed with talented musicians ready to JAM for the dancers. This JAM is still one of Doble Ocho’s most creative elements, full of improvisation and a unique interaction between musicians and dancers.

info

Latin American mass in museum of Roman art: Misa Criolla in the Valkhof Museum

The Nijmegen Valkhof Museum is the city's museum of archeology and historical and contemporary art. On Easter Sunday, April 24, the foyer of the museum will play host to an iconic piece of Argentina's cultural heritage: a performance of Ariel Ramirez's 'Misa Creolla'. Set against a stunning backdrop of Roman artefacts from Nijmegen’s distant past, Argentinian music from Creole and Indian sources will fill the Museum. The soloist will be Argentinian tenor Javier Rodríguez, who is specially touring Holland in 2011 to perform this work. He will be supported by the Nijmegen Chamber Choir. The Misa Creolla ('Creole Mass') was originally composed by Ramirez in 1964, the year that the Vatican allowed masses to be written in different languages. It was made famous by the versions by José Carreras and Mercedes Sosa. It comprises 5 short pieces of music, which will be complemented by an extended musical programme consisting of selected tangos and Mario Castelnuovo Tedesco's ‘Romancero Gitano’.

Sunday April 24, Valkhof Museum 14.00 hrs. € 17,50
more info

april 3rd TangoMusic Route in Nijmegen presents live tango dance and music in shops

After a successful first edition of the Nijmegen Tango Route, on April 3 the centre of Nijmegen will be buzzing with live tango music and dance demos in shops, cafés and public places. More than 20 tango musicians will bring music to 10+ different locations, with a salon featuring Trio Nocturna in the public library and a grand climax in the Kolpinghuis from 17.00 with a free milonga – live music from the Origen tango sextet. Several streets will be transformed into authentic ‘Argentinian barrios de tango’, including the Houtstraat where several shops will be participating (and last year was the location for a spontaneous street milonga with live music). RBT-KAN and Ultimo Tango will be producing a flyer with full details, a map of the Tango Route and a list of all the participants.
video of last year, March 7 : Tango Music Route

Info also on www.vvvnijmegen.nl and www.doble-ocho.com/tangomuziekroute2011.htm

CD presentatie Trio Nocturna in Royal Class Tango

foto Michel Oehlen.

OP 19 maart presenteert Trio Nocturna haar nieuwe CD XONGO tijdens de Royal Class Salon in Rosmalen. Een album vol eigen composities, dansbare tango's, neergezet met een grote melodische verbeelding en ritmische finesse. Sensueel en subtiel, eigentijds en oorspronkelijk tegelijkertijd.

meer info over de salon & CD presentatie
website van Trio Nocturna
Luister naar enkele nieuwe tracks !