It’s a rare occurrence when a symphony orchestra devotes an entire half of a subscription concert to music that wasn’t intended for a concert hall. On Sunday night Music Director Alasdair Neale and the Marin Symphony did just that, opening their 56th season with the innovative Quartet San Francisco and their tribute to the tango.
This concert had something for everyone, including a pair of internationally acclaimed dancers, a bandoneon soloist, and a first half that featured chestnuts by Rimsky-Korsakov and Ravel. This type of creative programming with multiple media should be considered a model for symphony orchestras all over the country that are endeavoring to build new audience bases.
Known for its successful crossovers into numerous musical styles, including jazz, pop, funk, blues, bluegrass, and more, Quartet San Francisco has enjoyed unusual success with its national and international performances as well as its Grammy-nominated recordings of sensuous dance music from Argentina. The quartet’s putative leader, Jeremy Cohen, is quite clearly an extraordinarily creative musician. Nationally acknowledged as a leading jazz violinist, he also possesses significant gifts as a composer and arranger. His colorful orchestrations of tangos by Agustin Bardi, G.H. Rodriguez, and Astor Piazzolla — in addition to three of his own compositions — made possible this satisfying collaboration with the Marin Symphony.
The most compelling piece on the altogether entertaining program was the medley of two tangos by Piazzolla, whose name has become synonymous with this musical style. Pairing the slow and achingly beautiful Melodia en La Menor with the driving, energetic Libertango, Cohen conceived a tour de force that brilliantly displayed the tango’s seductive charms. This is substantial music, featuring the bandoneon (a popular, accordion-like instrument from Argentina), played expertly and soulfully by guest artist Seth Asarnow, and dancers Sandor and Parissa (who enthralled the audience in two other numbers, as well), supporting a mesmerizing freestyle (nonchoreographed) tango.
While the Libertango sizzled with raw energy and superb playing by the quartet and the orchestra’s string section, the Melodia imparted the real essence of the tango’s beguiling character, with ravishing melodies and lush harmonies that unfolded over a lazy, yet insistent, descending chromatic bass line. Cohen has enhanced the medley with a stunning original cadenza for solo violin that bridges the two tangos, and his flawless virtuosity was not lost on the rapt audience.