Last Tango Before Sunrise

ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Peer Music is releasing Last Tango Before Sunrise: The Music of José Serebrier.

With the composer himself conducting the Málaga Philharmonic Orchestra and surrounded by a group of peerless soloists, among them flautists Nestor Torres and Gabriel Goñí-Dondi, harpist Sara Cutler, pianist Nadia Shpachenko, soprano Solène Le Van, and the members of Moscow’s Gnessin Percussion Ensemble led by Ilia Melikhov, the album features an interesting sampling of Serebrier’s journey as a composer, leading from the dissonances of the 1957 Piano Sonata and the explorations of the conflation of sound and colors in the 1971 Colores Mágicos.

In certain early compositions featured in the album Serebrier taps into his Latin American roots, seeking to return to the richness of the music of his native Uruguay. That search for the simple and authentic is evident in the highly rhythmic Candombe and Conga and is most successful in the ravishingly melodic Danza, in the sultry Tango in Blue, in the intriguing Almost a Tango and in the inspired work that gives the album its title: Last Tango Before Sunrise.

Throughout the multiple compositions featured in this fascinating album the composer gives his soloists ample opportunities to excel in music idiomatically suited to the various instruments for which he writes.

The album is nicely produced and recorded in various venues and abundantly annotated with commentary by the composer himself.

Rafael de Acha       All About the Arts

Published by ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Rafael de Acha has enjoyed a distinguished career in the arts as a performer, stage director, producer, and educator. He was born and grew up in Cuba. At the age of 17 he moved to the United States to study Drama at the University of Minnesota, and later Languages at L.A. City College, Music at the Juilliard School of Music, at the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music, and at the New England Conservatory of Music, from which he received the Master's degree. He has taught courses on the History of Music at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music and at Florida International University, and contributed writings and reviews to Seen and Heard International (www.seenandheard-international.com ) and to this blog. He co-founded the award-winning New Theatre in Coral Gables, Florida, where he produced and staged twenty seasons of classical and contemporary theater, including fifty world premieres of plays that went on to have international and national productions on and off Broadway, including Ana in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz (Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2002 and Tony Nomination 2003.) In 2006 he was presented with a citation from The Dade County Cultural Affairs Council for “trailblazing contributions to the arts in South Florida.”