Get ready to tango! The UK's first and only annual Festival of Latin classical music is back in London this Autumn with a special Piazzolla centenary edition

Welcome!

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Banish those Autumn blues and let yourself be carried away to the sunnier climes of Ibe/rica at Echoes Festival 2021, where we bring you some sizzling music performed by the hottest talent in Latin classical. Echoes Festival was launched in 2016 as the new flagship project of ILAMS (the Iberian and Latin American Music Society), in collaboration with the Cervantes Institute. Now in its 6th year, the Festival brings unique classical Iberican programming to some of London's most prestigious venues, whilst providing a platform to some of the most authentic and illustrious voices within Latin classical music today.

Echoes Festival 2021

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This year, we're excited to announce a special edition of Echoes Festival celebrating the centenary of the birth of Argentine composers Astor Piazzolla and Ariel Ramírez, and we're proud to be joining forces with the Argentine Embassy in the hosting of the official UK 2021 Piazzolla celebrations, alongside our permanent Festival partner, the Instituto Cervantes.

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 9 NOV - 11 DEC 2021

Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992), the 20th-century's enfant terrible of Argentine music, was as complex, contradictory and polemical as he was ingenious and innovative; a composer whose works straddle both the popular and classical music worlds, making them notoriously difficult to pin down to any one genre or tradition. We have aimed to reflect this multifaceted nature of Piazzolla's output in this year's programming, whilst also making it a priority to bring to light the less frequented corners of Piazzolla's classical catalogue, and we are pleased to be presenting Piazzolla's complete original chamber works across the whole Festival, including many rarely-performed pieces.

At the same time, we could not fail to also celebrate the centenary of Ariel Ramírez (1921-2010) - another towering figure of Argentine music who, although primarily a composer and performer of folk music, left an indelible mark on the classical music world with his small but mighty catalogue of semi-classical pieces such as the Misa criolla and Mujeres argentinas. Through various events we explore these and other, less familiar, works equally deserving of attention.

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This year we present a mixture of live and online content for you to enjoy whatever your location or level of lockdown. For the first time we're going global to bring you several events filmed in Buenos Aires, including various special events held at the CCK (Centro Cultural Kirchner), Argentina's premier arts complex. We're honoured to be featuring various artists who knew and collaborated with Piazzolla personally, such as Néstor Marconi, Amelita Baltar, José Angel Trelles, Roberto Aussel and Eduardo Vassallo, as well as some of the leading young Argentine artists of the new generation, including Jaquelina Livieri, Leonardo Pastore, Natalia González, Gianneo Quartet, Darío Barozzi, Amalia Pérez, and the Quinteto Astor Piazzolla.

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As well as concerts, we have a plethora of other events for you to dip into: catch one of our virtual film screenings, such as Daniel Rosenfeld's recent award-winning documentary on Piazzolla, The Years of the Shark; or come along to our beginner's tango lesson followed by a 'tango tea' - a vintage British milonga, 1913-stye. We also showcase Piazzolla's film music whilst paying hommage to the Argentine film director, Fernando Solanas - a close collaborator with Piazzolla who passed away in 2020.

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Our 'tango-tea' -stye milonga is just one of the ways we're exploring the impact of Piazzolla, tango and Argentine music specifically on British culture. In a related event, It Takes Tea to Tango, singer Patricia Hammond and multi-instrumentalist Matt Redman delve into the early European tangos of the 1910s-1940s in a special edition of their informal weekly Living Room Requests series. And pre-eminent Argentine pianist, Lilia Salsano, bravely navigates her way through the 'tangos' in the British Music Collection by 20th century and living British composers, in an online recital filmed in her native province of Santa Fé.

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As ever, the Festival also offers a range of educational events: our Piazzolla symposium brings together some of the world's leading experts on the composer; we present two special instalments of our monthly podcast series, Journeys Through the Labyrinth with presenter Ray Picot, on Piazzolla and Ramírez respectively, and our popular Come&Sing event is also back, this time in remote format and led by the illustrious Argentine conductor Mariana Rosas, who will be coaching us through Ariel Ramírez's colourful Misa criolla.

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Accompanying our online concerts we have numerous live Zoom events which we will be announcing as the Festival progresses, so make sure you're signed up to our mailing list and social media channels so we can keep you updated! Click HERE to join / follow us now.

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This year's Festival definitely offers something for everyone, so check out this year's full programme HERE.  

We can't wait to see you there!

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Helen Glaisher-Hernández

Artistic Director, Echoes Festival

Let's Be Friends!

To become a Friend of Echoes Festival, please email us at info@ilams.org.uk, call us on 07762 731010, or click HERE to find out more

Become a Friend of Echoes Festival and save ££s with our Festival Pass

Your support is essential in helping to cover the costs of organising our Festival. Join a growing band of wonderful people who already support us! Subscriptions start from £75/year and bring multiple benefits, including:​

• Free access to our events with our special Festival Pass

• Welcome CD gift

• Credit in the Festival programme

• Invitation to exclusive Friends' events and receptions

• Access to the best seats in the house

• Opportunity to attend rehearsals and go 'backstage’ and to meet the artists

• Option to credit your support with a nominated performance or educational bursary named after you

• Complimentary membership to ILAMS

Echoes Festival is YOUR Festival 

Get Involved!

Click HERE to find out more about taking part in EF through:

• Volunteering

• Work Experience

• Masterclasses

• Come & Sing Events

• ...and More!

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Acknowledgements

We'd like to thank pianist Clara Rodríguez for lending us her recording of the 'Plantio do caboclo' from Villa-Lobos' Ciclo brasileiro, which features as the jingle for our new video intros (as well as our website). We are also indebted to the Instituto Nacional de Musicologia 'Carlos Vega' in Buenos Aires for providing a facsimile of Piazzolla's autograph Adiós Nonino for display as part of the Festival poster.

Sponsors & Partners:

Thank you!

Echoes Festival 2021 is co-produced by ILAMS and the Instituto Cervantes in partnership with the Embassy of Argentina with the support of our sponsors and partners below.