"Tango x 3" -- 3 Pianos and One Incredible Celebration of Tango!
Television’s smash hit “Dancing with the Stars” has galvanized interest in Tango dance for American audiences, but the breadth and richness of Tango music has not received its due time under the lights – that is, until now. Ted Viviani, producer of Extreme Tango (www.xtango-sf.com) has made it his labor of love to remedy this situation with Tango x 3, the second installment of his popular Tango Trilogy. Taking place Friday, August 15 through Sunday, August 17 at San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts Theatre (3301 Lyon Street) Tango x 3 literally will extend Tango music performance into an exciting third dimension.
“Since the mid-1990s San Francisco has been the epicenter of the international Tango scene with much of the Bay Area having become fertile ground for some of the best Tango dancers in the world,” explains Viviani. “And yet, the Tango community here must develop a deeper appreciation -- and more active support – of the great riches of Tango music in order to be able to compete with the likes of Buenos Aires.”
According to Viviani, whose life passion is fostering, developing and presenting the best of Tango – from the Bay Area and beyond -- Tango x 3 is not only a serious step towards meeting this objective, but one which does so in the true Tango fashion of onstage experimentation.
“Tango is about breaking the rules,” says an obviously excited Viviani. “In Tango x 3 we are doing something unprecedented in bringing three world class pianists together for one evening of unequalled musical exploration.”
In fact, Tango X 3 will be the first time three pianists have ever performed Tango music together in a full concert format playing solos, duets, and trios. The artists comprising this world-premiere are two-time Latin Grammy nominee Jovino Santos Neto from Brazil; recording artist and cultural ambassador Polly Ferman from Uruguay; and Erika Nickrenz of the wildly popular two-time Grammy-nominated Eroica Trio. Special performances will include the world premiere of two new pieces for three pianos from Tango legend Daniel Binelli as well as offering composed and performed by Neto himself. Also featured in the program will be 2-3 piece suites for piano duet composed by Pablo Ziegler. One of San Francisco's leading Tango dancers/instructors, Christy Cote, and her partner Darren Lees will perform several dances as guest artists. This program is being presented as a benefit for the San Francisco Breast Cancer Emergency Fund.
One of the leading interpreters of Tango music, Polly Ferman, captivates audiences with her tremendous performances of works by Gottschalk, Nazareth, Gershwin, Villa-Lobos, Ginastera, Piazzolla and Golijov, among others. The Japan Times called her “the Musical Ambassador of the Americas” with extensive tours as a soloist with the Symphonies of San Francisco, Colorado, Vancouver, and Indianapolis, as well as the Tokyo Philharmonic, Philippines Philharmonic, Sâo Paulo State Symphony, the National Symphony of Argentina and Cuba’s Camerata Romeu.. Ferman is founder of Pan American Musical Art Research, a New York based non-profit dedicated to promoting new artists from all the Americas and she also played an instrumental role in the creation and production of New City's Latin American Culture Week, which now is in its third year.
Best known as pianist for the Eroica Trio, Erika Nickrenz is a native of New York, where she made her concerto debut in Town Hall at age eleven. Nickrenz received her B.M. and M.M. degrees from the Juilliard School as a pupil of Abbey Simon, and she is an active solo and chamber musician with more than eighty concerts per season. Erika has received the prestigious Rockefeller Award, the Naumburg Award and has been celebrated by Carnegie Hall’s as “America’s Rising Star.” As a member of the Eroica Trio, she has performed with many ensembles worldwide, including the Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Pittsburgh, Saint Louis, Houston and San Francisco Symphony Orchestras, as well as tours with the Budapest Symphony and Prague Chamber Orchestra.
Rio de Janeiro-born and Seattle-based pianist, flutist, and composer Jovino Santos Neto transcends the barriers between classical, jazz, and indigenous Brazilian music. A member of Hermeto Pascoal's legendary band from 1977 to 1992, Neto has built a distinguished reputation as a creative and inspired musician, producer and arranger. Neto relocated to the United States in 1993 after performing on Sergio Mendes's Grammy award-winning world music album, Brasileiro. Besides performing worldwide, he gives lectures and workshops on Brazilian music and continues to collaborate with his long time mentor Hermeto Pascoal as the music director of the Hermeto Pascoal Big Band.
“I am honored by the opportunity to collaborate both as a composer and as a musician in this project, said Neto. “I always enjoyed listening to Tango music, but my appreciation has grown by leaps and bounds since I have been playing these wonderful compositions by Piazzolla, Binelli, Ziegler and the other composers. I am also so very happy to be collaborating for the first time onstage with Polly Ferman and Erika Nickrenz, two truly outstanding musicians, that I have written a special composition for 3 pianos, Tres Sinas (“Three Fates”) to celebrate this unique series of concerts.”
Daniel Binelli’s “Golden Gate Fantasy” for 3 pianos was funded in part by the Composer Assistance Program of the American Music Center
About Extreme Tango:
Extreme Tango (xTango) was founded in 2004 by Ted Viviani to promote innovative and genre-challenging productions of dance and music emerging from the Tango tradition. xTango’s first event was in 2004 in association with Cal Performances at Zellerbach Hall. The program featured four world renowned soloists: Argentinean bandoneonist Daniel Binelli, Uruguayan pianist Polly Ferman, Argentinean guitarist Eduardo Isaac, and Chilean classical flutist Viviana Guzman. In addition, the performance featured two of the most graceful and talented tango dancers in the world, Pilar Alvarez and Claudio Hoffmann. Since 2004, xTango has presented events with Argentinean singer and 2005 Grammy nominee, Sandra Luna; the all-female world-premiere production in San Francisco of Leading Ladies of Tango in December 2006 with vocalist Silvana Deluigi; and this past April’s Tango Evolution featured once again Binelli and Isaac this time with the most sought after classical chamber music group in the world, the Eroica Trio; and dancer Miriam Larici from the 1998 Broadway cast of Forever Tango. For information on upcoming performances go online to www.xtango-sf.com
Performances of Tango x 3 are Friday & Saturday, August 15 & 16, 8pm; Sunday, August 17, 2pm & 7pm. All performances are at San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts Theatre (3301 Lyon Street, San Francisco). Tickets may be purchased online at www.cityboxoffice.com