Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Work Overview

As the title suggests, this piece draws on two Latin American music-dance genres, tango and salsa, both of which are historically andmusically related. The milonga is a sub-genre of tango that has been a staple dance within the Argentine and Uruguayan dance halls sincethe early days of tango. The milonga features the habanera rhythm, which was brought to the eastern coast of South America by Cuban sailors.It is a suggestive and dance-provoking one-bar cell that consists of a rising and falling pitch contour made famous in the West by Bizet's 'Carmen'.
Salsa derrived from Cuban music and developed in the United States and the Caribbean nations of Latin America. Salsa, as for much Afro-Cuban music, finds it's rhythmic source in the clave (pronounced klah-veh), a two-bar pattern traditionally executed by the claves (a pair of resonant sticks) that establishes the order and resulting interaction between tension and resolution across the various rhythmic layers.
SalTango is intended as an ebullient and gregarious piece that draws the orchestra and audience together in a celebration of life and human emotions.

Work Details

Year: , this version: 2021

Instrumentation: 2 Flutes (flute 2 doub. piccolo), 2 oboes, 2 Clarinets in B flat (clarinet 2 doub. clarinet in A), 2 bassoons, 4 horns in F, 3 trumpets in C, 2 tenor trombones, bass trombone, tuba, timpani, percussion (3 players: timbale kit; congas (pair); güiro, bongo bell, triangle), strings.

Duration: 6 min.

Difficulty: Advanced — An adept amateur or student orchestra to professional level due to the many rhythmic demands.

The composer notes the following styles, genres, influences, etc in relation to this work:
Marques Danzon, Ginastera, Revueltas, Aaron Copland, Astor Piazzolla, Elena Kats-Chernin, Mambo, Cuban, Argentina, Latin America, South America, Caribbean, Leonard Bernstein, Westside Story.