Coro Austral’s “Solamente Tango” lifts ebullient audience to the ecstatic!

Coro Austral and Associate Artists | Solamente Tango (Only Tango)

April 28, 2024, Ashfield Town Hall

A bustling suburban downtown strip gave way to a portal that, for today, would provide two hours of other worldly delight! An unexpected gem, the Ashfield Town Hall proved an apposite choice of locale for Solamente Tango (Only Tango) — a concert event featuring Coro Austral alongside key tango-classical music and dance personalities in the Sydney community. A sound acoustic and generally suitable sight lines with ample space for musicians and dancers, along with the promise of food and drink, prompted a welcoming Latin American festive atmosphere. The audience, engaged and intrigued, were visibly delighted from the onset!

Coro Austral, adroitly conducted by artistic director, Margot McLaughlin, opened the program with a series of poignant choral arrangements in the Spanish language. Although it may have taken a few moments to warm comfortably into the repertoire, I was impressed by Coro Austral’s aptitude and courage to navigate demanding polyphonic passages and complex harmonies. The pronunciation was well executed despite the non-Spanish-speaking background of most members. The English translations printed on the pithy twelve-page program were precise and even iterated some of the poetic innuendos of the original Spanish.

The Misa Tango (AKA Mass of Buenos Aires) by Martín Palmeri was the large-scale composition of this program. This remarkable work, completed in 1996, draws rhetorically and stylistically on the Western choral music tradition as much as it does on several tango genres: a further instantiation of the sacred-profane tradition so cherished in Latin American cultural artefacts. Coro Austral gave the Australian premiere of this work in 2022 with Colombian soprano Paola Monroy and pianist Tom McCorquodale. This occasion they were joined by the impressive sextet Adelante Tango, with celebrated tango educator and bandoneonist Maggie Ferguson.

Adelante Tango

All vocal and instrumental forces performed pivotal roles throughout this tango mass. Conductor Margot McLaughlin demonstrated effectual leadership, having sustained the architecture of the composition, and highlighted the contrast between poignant and rhythmic passages. Tom McCorquodale, who is a technically and stylistically adept tango pianist, supported her leadership with clarity and flair. Paola Monroy, a versatile operatic and popular vocalist, deployed her siren-like finesse to captivate her audience with the purity of her pianissimos and the clout of her capacious fortes. Coro Austral demonstrated a hearty commitment to the rich harmonic and rhythmic vocabulary of this work as well as a Spanish-Italian-inflected Latin elocution. Adelante Tango performed with clarity, stylistic understanding, and nuance. The bursts of sustained applause after the climactic “Amen” of the Credo, and at the gentle close of the work (“dona nobis pacem”, a supplication for peace), were palpable manifestations of adroit musical storytelling.

The remainder of the program included an assortment of well-known popular tango repertoire performed by Monroy and McCorquodale, Coro Austral, and Adelante Tango (this time with Reika Suzuki-Macklin on piano). A magical touch ensued with a formidable dance performance by Jacqueline Simpson and Anthony Miller of Tango Spirit, who fomented waves of electrifying virtuosity and charisma to the music of Adelante Tango. This paved the way for further couples who joined them, all of whom gracefully adorned the dance floor in counterclockwise motion according to social tango dance norms.

Jacqueline Simpson and Anthony Miller of Tango Spirit

The enormous organisational and logistic efforts to present this event were indeed coterminous with the rewards! This was a gift to the audience, a full house, who in turn cherished it with unabated enthusiasm… and following our fervent ebullitions of appreciation, we exited the portal into the evening downtown bustle with a novel and unassailable buzz!

Guest reviewer: Daniel O. Rojas

Daniel Rojas is a South American born Australian composer and pianist specialising in the rich and vibrant Latin American musical aesthetic. He is actively sought after as composer and regularly performs with symphony orchestras and chamber ensembles. Rojas holds a PhD in composition and is an Associate Professor of Music at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.