Merced Symphony tangos in latest concert

The Merced Symphony featured the masterworks of composers Antonio Vivaldi and Astor Piazzolla on Friday.

The program led by Music Director Ming Luke featured eight soloists during performances of Italian composer Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” and Argentine composer Piazzolla’s “Four Seasons of Buenos Aires.”

The two composers wrote music meant to reflect the feeling of each season. Luke said the pieces were mixed together in an arrangement to give the audience a chance to compare and contrast the Italian sound and Argentine tangos.

Written 200 years apart, the tangos “quote” pieces of music from the much older Italian concertos, Luke said. “There’s a little sampling of the music in the tango versions,” he said.

The Italian composer’s piece is a group of four violin concertos. They were written around 1723. Vivaldi wrote sonnets to go along with each season.

The “Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas,” known in English as the “The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires,” are a set of tango compositions. The music was written in the 1960s and premiered in 1970.

Russian composer Leonid Desyatnikov arranged the tangos in the 1990s to align them with the sound of Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons.” Since Italy and Argentina are on either side of the equator, the seasons are opposite.

Having eight soloists made the performance unique, Luke said. The soloists included Heather Powell, Dagenais Smiley, Ilana Thomas and Stephanie Bibbo from the Merced orchestra. The other four were Aromi Park, Natalie Tsai, Shun Yoshino and Genevieve Micheletti, students from the San Francisco Academy Orchestra.

The Merced Symphony is in its 58th season. The next performance is in February and will feature music from Cole Porter, George Gershwin and others from the American songbook.

“It’s going to be fantastic,” Luke said.

This story was originally published November 20, 2015 at 8:57 PM with the headline "Merced Symphony tangos in latest concert."