Antonio Gavrila - Tango Suite Buenos Aires

2023

Pianist Gavrila presents his fresh take on Piazzolla-style Tango Nuevo, fronting a crew of Buenos Aires based Tango veterans Castro, Sinesi Hurtado. - The 27-year old Bucharest-based pianist-composer Antonio Gavrila's joins an impressive roll call of renowned international artists who have paid tribute to the hugely influential Argentinian composer Astor Piazzolla, including Gary Burton, Gidon Kremer, Richard Galliano, Al Di Meola, Yo-Yo Ma, the Kronos Quartet, Pablo Aslan, Bireli Lagrene & Gil Goldstein, Michel Camilo & Tomatito, and Sérgio & Odair Assad.

Each artist was greatly inspired by Piazzolla's Nuevo Tango, none more engaging than Antonio's. The centerpiece of the album is Gavrila's Suite Buenos Aires, inspired by Piazzolla's "Angel Suite." As he explained, "Each piece represents a picture of everything I saw and experienced in Buenos Aires while recording the album there." It opens with Tristeza ("Sadness"), a thoughtful solo piano cadenza composed in the tradition of Piazzolla and his admiration for the circle of fifths. That brief cadenza leads into the first movement of the suite, Nuevos Tiempos, a full band arrangement involving some intricate counterpoint between piano and the unison lines between bandoneon and guitar.

Said the composer, "It represents my musical rebirth. After 15 years of study in the classical tradition along with all the experiences and emotions of those times, I was reborn through tango." Gavrila delivers what is perhaps his jazziest solo on the recording midway through against Hurtado's steady, jazz-style "walking" bass lines before piano, bandoneon and guitar engage in an animated fugue, leading to a dramatic finish. That same melodic theme from "Nuevos Tiempos" carries over to the second movement, Nostalgico. Said the composer, "I was deeply touched and influenced by the main theme from Piazzolla's 'La Camorra' (the three-movement suite from the 1989 American Clave album La Camorra: La Soledad de la Provocacion Apasiona - the very first Piazzolla album that Gavrila listened to and the last recording made by Piazzolla's New Tango Quintet.