Aotango: shall we dance?

Concert preview by guest writer Cadence Chung

“The first time I was at a Milonga,” says accordionist Grayson Masefield, “people sitting around the outside of the room would just stand up, walk to the middle of the dance floor and start dancing. There was no verbal invitation or anything, no-one would walk over and say, ‘Would you like to dance?’.” 

He was initially puzzled but learned it was called ‘cabeceó’, which means, literally, ‘a nod of the head’. “The men look across the room, and the lady will also be looking,” he explains.  “If she meets someone's eyes and looks away, that’s a polite refusal. But if she acknowledges them, positively, maybe with a nod, they'll just stand up, meet on the dance floor and start dancing. It all happens through this non-verbal invitation.”

The newly-formed New Zealand group Aotango, featuring Masefield, draws on this concept of a simple invitation. They want audiences to join them in enjoying their unique fusion of music. Aiming to be accessible to audiences of all ages and musical backgrounds, they play an eclectic range of world and tango music. Their name combines the word ‘Ao’, meaning ‘world’ in te reo Māori, with ‘tango’; Aotango is bringing music from around the world back to Aotearoa. Their upcoming December concerts will celebrate International Tango Day 2024.

Aotango has five performers, an arrangement that can be traced back to Argentinian composer Astor Piazzolla. After the golden age of tango in the 1930s -1950s, Piazzolla revolutionised the genre that was later called nuevo tango. Quintets were a key part of this innovation, but are less often highlighted in modern concerts, with orchestral arrangements taking the spotlight. 

Aotango’s members are familiar faces in New Zealand’s musical landscape, all known best as distinguished chamber and solo musicians. Based in Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland, the line-up features violinist Andrew Beer (Auckland Philharmonia Concertmaster), pianist Somi Kim (NZTrio), double bassist Gordon Hill (Auckland Philharmonia Section Principal), award-winning accordionist Masefield, and jazz guitarist Sam Swindells.

Aotango

(from left) Andrew Beer (violin), Somi Kim (piano), Grayson Masefield (accordion), Gordon Hill (bass), Sam Swindells (guitar)

Photo: supplied

Masefield was inspired to start the group after working with a quintet in Switzerland. He sounded out his University of Auckland colleagues who recommended Beer, who was immediately enthusiastic. From there, Hill, Swindells and Kim made their way on to the Aotango team.

“It’s so exciting,” Masefield says, “to have these musicians with such a wealth of experience and knowledge in so many different musical styles. It’s really cool for me to hear them let loose in the style that’s…” — he chooses his words carefully — “I wouldn’t say to ‘show off’, but when Piazzolla formed his group he handpicked the best Argentine musicians and he wrote the music for those musicians.”

Piazzolla’s nuevo tango works contain a huge array of influences. His inspirations range from his classical mentors, Nadia Boulanger and Alberto Ginastera, to jazz legends Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway — whom he snuck out to see as a youth in New York — as well as his father’s tango records. Similarly, each musician in Aotango brings a unique twist to the quintet, with their varied experience in orchestral, chamber, and jazz settings. 

Their December concerts will feature some Piazzolla, a selection from his Four Seasons, but the programme caters to many tastes. Aotango will be playing popular tango pieces La Cumparsita, Adios Nonino, and Por Una Cabeza, alongside other picks from across jazz and world music. The concerts will also feature a special release of Tales of the Iron Rig by New Zealand composer David Mason, from the soundtrack of the Christchurch-developed video game DREDGE. Beer and Masefield both feature on the Iron Rig expansion pack for this game, and the work was written for quintet. 

This variety is important to Aotango’s ethos, Masefield explains. “We bounce around different styles and periods or genres of tango; I think it’s super-important that an audience tastes a lot of different things. That’s a potential gateway for non-classical audiences. They’ll see these classical musicians really show off what their instruments can do.”

So what can audiences expect of these International Tango Day concerts? First of all, Masefield says, “their money’s worth!” But he also hopes that people will experience something different in a relaxed, casual environment. And there’s an unusual feature to these performances — there will be live dancers at the shows in Auckland and Wellington. For Aotango’s 2023 series of similar concerts, they had around 60 community and guest dancers in the Auckland Museum.

Masefield finds the repertoire instantly draws people in. “It’s a pretty interesting project with the quintet,” he summarises. “What I’ve found in the past couple of years is that when people hear that it’s about tango, they go ‘Oh, tango! I love tango’. And so it's nice that we have this genre that we can use. It's a platform to play some of the music that I believe isn't really heard in the country at all.”
Aotango’s International Tango Day 2024 concerts: Auckland (December 6), Palmerston North (December 9), Wellington (December 10). More information and tickets here.