Fusion music, in itself, is not a musical genre. It occurs when musicians integrate techniques and styles from different backgrounds; when they cross different musical styles with the aim of creating a new and original musical identity. This was the key idea that guided the definition of this program by the Solistas da Metropolitana. The starting point was the string quartet, one of the most distinctive instrumental formations in the European classical tradition. They then sought out sounds from across the Atlantic. They begin with jazz, with the unlikely signature of a composer born near Donetsk who lived most of his life in Moscow. It was there that Nikolai Kapustin heard a Voice of America radio broadcast in 1953 and was enchanted by jazz. He never visited the US, but his String Quartet No. 1, composed in 1998, is a good example of the consequences of that first encounter. Astor Piazzolla, on the other hand, spent part of his childhood and adolescence in New York. Returning to Argentina, he revolutionized tango. In the second half of the 1950s, he formed the Buenos Aires Octet, for which he composed Tango Ballet, six short pieces intended for a short film about dance. The film was lost, but the octet’s cellist, José Bragato, breathed new life into the soundtrack by adapting it for string quartet.
American Quartets
Solistas da Metropolitana
N. Kapustin String Quartet No. 1, Op. 88
A. Piazzolla Tango Ballet
Nuno Rodrigues, Tolga Kulak violins
José Freitas viola
Catarina Gonçalves cello
