TracksBuenos Aires Hora Cero, Romance Del Diablo, Escualo, Concierto Para Quinteto, Milonga en Re, Revirado, Fracanapa, Soledad, Decarissimo
NotesCD Review: Tango Pacifico (from the Willamette Week) May 12th, 2010 Posted by: Brett Campbell Revirado (Furbco Records) [NUEVO TANGO] The great Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla earned the ire of tango traditionalists for doing for that once-disreputable dance what composers from Dvorak to Gershwin, Louis Armstrong to Bob Dylan did with other grassroots musical forms: used it as the basis for a more sophisticated art music that never sounded like it was slumming. Since then, classical musicians from Kronos Quartet to Eroica Trio to Yo-Yo Ma have dabbled, with varying success, in the composer's sublimely skewed mixed meters. Although it likewise features a pair of Oregon Symphony players (assistant concertmaster Erin Furbee, bassist Jeff Johnson), Portland-based quintet Tango Pacifico's Piazzolla tribute tweaks the tension between traditional and modern that gives his music it's edgy energy. All the group's members, including San Francisco bandoneón player Adrian Jost, veteran multifaceted guitarist John Mery and pianist Mika Sunago, have studied this music at the source. (These CD release performances will also feature soprano Janice Johnson and dancers Rebecca Rorick Smith and Mike Naus.) The quintet expertly handles the tricky rhythms and shifting imagery of "Escualo" (which mimics the darting moves of it's namesake, the shark) and the title track (which means "unruly, rebellious or irreverent"). It ably captures the fervor of "Concierto Para Quinteto" and the cafe lilt of "Decarissimo" and "Fracanapa." In ballads such as "Romance del Diablo" and "Milonga en Re," which has the feel of a slow dance in a bar at closing time, Furbee's lovingly nuanced, singing violin displays it's classical pedigree yet never allows elegance to undermine the music's passion. Revirado deftly dances along the line between tango's origins in Buenos Aires's corners of ill repute and Piazzolla's ambitious art music. About the Artists: Erin Furbee joined the Oregon Symphony as Assistant Concertmaster in 2001. Prior to her arrival in Portland, she was a member of the Colorado Symphony for eight years, and she also played with the Milwaukee Symphony for a season. Originally from Chicago, Erin began the violin at age 4 with Rebecca Sandrok; she also studied with George Perlman and Betty Lambert. She attended the University of Michigan, received her Bachelor's degree in Music from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, and was a graduate fellow at the University of Minnesota. Erin's main teachers have been Camilla Wicks, Raphael Fliegal, Jacob Krachmalnick and Roland and Almita Vamos. She has performed as a soloist with the Oregon Symphony, the Colorado Symphony and the University of Minnesota Symphony Orchestras, and in December, 2009, performed the Beethoven Triple Concerto with the Yaroslavl Philharmonic in Yaroslavl, Russia. In addition to her great love for performing classical music, Erin enjoys playing tango music, a passion she developed after first hearing the music of Astor Piazzolla in 1997. While living in Denver, she and fellow bandoneon player Evan Orman co-founded a four piece tango group called Extasis and traveled to Buenos Aires in 1999 to study with musicians in many of the tango orchestras there. She has since made three more journeys to Argentina over the past 5 years, and was very lucky to be able to work with Jose Bragato, Piazzolla's cellist and arranger on a CD project for piano trio called Bragatissimo. In Portland, Erin performs with two tango groups. In 2001, she formed Tango Pacifico, a 5-piece band which specializes in the music of Astor Piazzolla. The group has performed with Fear no Music, on the Chamber Music on Tap series, the Oregon Symphony Gala, and at Tango Berretin for dancers. Tango Pacifico received a grant in 2002 from the Knight Foundation to perform a show of tango and samba music, and recently released their first CD, Revirado in May, 2010. She also plays with Orquesta Tipica Krebs (a grou