2017 Danzas Amorosas

Date
Melbourne, VIC, Australia
Melbourne Recital Centre 31 Sturt Street, Southbank
Melbourne VIC 3006
Australia
Danzas Amorosas
Time
3:00 pm

Hourglass Ensemble

A program of Latin-American inspired music

Associate artists:
Vivien Jeffery violin
Andrew Kennedy clarinets/artistic director
Gregory Kinda piano
Ewa Kowalski flute/piccolo
Suzi Stengel soprano

From the Hourglass Ensemble website:
Danzas Amorosas, or Dances of Love, is a seminal work by Chilean-Australian composer Daniel Rojas for flutes, clarinets, violin, cello, and piano. The piece reminds us of being hypnotised, unable to walk past any couple dancing a tango or cha-cha. Rojas invokes the music of ‘Pachamama’ Mother Earth, and the voice of ‘Taita Wamani’, Father Mountain, along with familiar dance rhythms. The ancient people of South America prayed for fertility, growth, and the harvest using particular dances – the salsa, the merengue, the lambada – the bodies of dancers repeating signals from the core of ancient rituals.

The Hourglass Ensemble presents passionate operatic favourites by Gimenez and Verdi, including the cherished Pace, pace mio dio, or Peace, peace my god!, with a miniature orchestral arrangement. There will be funky new work with blues and Latin vibe by Brisbane composer Andrew Ball, the wildly passionate and irrepressible Tango Fantasia for flute and piano, and a cheeky anthology inspired by a former prime minister, including Ian Munro’s The Tango We Had To Have, and the Scumbag Tango by Russell Gilmour, from The Keating Tangos.

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