journal.nonesuch.com

Orchestra Baobab, Fernando Otero to Play Chicago's Millennium Park This Summer

Chicago's Millennium Park has announced this summer's season of its free outdoor world-music series, Music Without Borders. Performing this summer at the Park's Jay Pritzker Pavillion are Orchestra Baobab, who will play on June 28 at 8:30 PM, and Fernando Otero, who will open for the Bajofondo Tango Club, led by composer Gustavo Santaolalla, on August 27, at 6:30 PM. You can read more about the series in today's Chicago Tribune or by visiting milleniumpark.org.

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Click here to add Fernando Otero's Pagina de Buenos Aires CD directly to your Shopping Cart for $14, along with the album MP3s at no extra cost.

Click here to add Orchestra Baobab's 2002 album Specialist in All Styles to your Cart for $16, along with the album MP3s at no extra cost. For more options, visit the Nonesuch Store.

BBC: Fernando Otero's Nonesuch Debut "Alive with Invention and Emotion"

Fernando Otero's Nonesuch debut, Pagina de Buenos Aires, "feels like page one of a very exciting book for Otero," writes the BBC's Tim Nelson in his review of the record. Nelson points to the "musical insiders" like Quincy Jones, Paquito D'Rivera, and Chico O'Farrill with whom Fernando has worked in the past and exclaims that the Argentine pianist-composer's own album, "with its sudden stops and starts, reckless experimentation and assured flourishes is a seemingly endless exciting series of first pages."

The BBC review goes on to describe Pagina de Buenos Aires as

an album that combines the rigors of classical structure with the freedom and daring of jazz. The album covers a lot of ground, from jaunty and fast-paced ensemble pieces ... to altogether more wistful and yearning pieces ... Otero's album is urbane and exotic, surreal and streetwise, and alive with invention and emotion.

To read the review, visit bbc.co.uk.

Chico O'Farrill's son Arturo leads his Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra in a performamce of new works by Latin American composers, including Fernando, at New York's Symphony Space March 27 and 29. For program and ticket information, visit symphonyspace.org.

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Click here to add the Pagina de Buenos Aires CD plus free album MP3s direct to your Shopping Cart for $14.

Photos from Fernando Otero / Tom Wolfe Barnes & Noble Event

Fernando Otero and Tom Wolfe took the stage together at the flagship Barnes & Noble store in New York's Union Square last week for the latest event in the Upstairs at the Square series pairing writers and musicians. Both participants answered from moderator Katherine Lanpher; Fernando was joined by cellist Inbal Segev and violinist Nick Danielson to perform songs from Pagina de Buenos Aires, his Nonesuch debut; and Wolfe read from his classic 1979 book The Right Stuff.

Here are some snapshots from the event:

Tom Wolfe, Inbal Segev, Fernando Otero Alexandra Wolfe (Tom's daughter), Tom, Fernando

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Click here to add the Pagina de Buenos Aires CD plus free album MP3s direct to your Shopping Cart for $14.

Fernando Otero Appears with Tom Wolfe at Barnes & Noble Event Today

Fernando Otero, whose Nonesuch debut, Pagina de Buenos Aires, was released earlier this year, joins writer Tom Wolfe (The Bonfire of the Vanities, The Right Stuff) for a discussion and performance this evening starting at 7 PM, at the flagship Barnes & Noble store in New York's Union Square.

Listen to the track "La Vista Gorda" off of Pagina de Buenos Aires here:

The event is part of the popular Upstairs at the Square series moderated by Katherine Lanpher, which mixes writers and musicians for evenings of reading, music, and conversation, and has featured writers like Nick Hornby, Armistead Maupin, and Paul Auster with musicians like Nellie McKay, Josh Rouse, and Teddy Thompson.

Admission is free with seating available on a first come, first-served basis. For more information, visit bn.com. 

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Click here to add the Pagina de Buenos Aires CD plus free album MP3s direct to your Shopping Cart for $14.

Kronos Quartet Returns to Carnegie Hall

Kronos Quartet returns to Carnegie Hall tonight with a performance in Zankel Hall as part of Carnegie's Signatures and Nonesuch at Carnegie series. On the program are five world premieres, including Fernando Otero's El Cerezo (The Cherry Tree) and John Adams's Fellow Traveler, as well as the New York premiere of Clint Mansell's Requiem for a Dream Suite. The concert begins at 7:30 PM and will be preceded at 6:30 by a conversation in Zankel Hall with David Harrington and Carnegie's director of artistic planning, Jeremy Geffen, open to all ticketed concertgoers.

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In The Advocate review of the Quartet's latest album, The Cusp of Magic, with Wu Man, critic Charlie Richards calls the piece one of composer Terry Riley's "most optimistic, light-hearted, and easily accessible works to date." About the piece, Richards continues:

Despite Riley's [72] years, The Cusp of Magic has a fresh and youthful feel that is lacking in the music of many of Riley’s younger colleagues. Those who already love Riley will most likely adore it, and even those who don't may find themselves charmed by it.

The review is similarly praiseworthy of the album itself:

It is hard to imagine a performance of the piece being given with as much care, love, clarity and tough-edged musicianship than the one exhibited here by Kronos and Wu Man, and, as usual with Nonesuch, the engineering is faultless.

In the end, Richards recommends the album both "to those who love new music---and even to those who have shied away from it in the past."

To read the full, track-by-track review, visit advocate.com.

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Click here to add Kronos Quartet's The Cusp of Magic CD plus free album MP3s, with the exclusive bonus download "Tusen Tankar," directly to your Shopping Cart now for only $13.97.

Click here to add Fernando Otero's Nonesuch debut, Pagina de Buenos Aires CD plus free album MP3s to your Cart for just $13.98.

NY Times: Otero Turns Up Heat Live and on New Record

Argentine-born composer-pianist Fernando Otero performed at Joe's Pub in New York City last Wednesday, celebrating the recent release of his Nonesuch debut, Página de Buenos Aires, which New York Times music critic Nate Chinen says "could be described as a heroically ambitious tango record, with a scope that reaches beyond the usual connotations of the style."

For his Joe's Pub set, Otero was joined by violinist Nick Danielson, one of the artists to perform on the record as well. And "as they prove on the new album," writes Chinen, "these musicians have an interplay with its own brand of heat and propulsion." In the live show, Chinen found the music "at its most personal and vital" on pieces like "Piringundin," which is also on the new record.

To read the full review, visit nytimes.com. To purchase Página de Buenos Aires, visit the Nonesuch Store. New York audiences can catch Otero and Danielson again tonight at the SGI-USA New York Culture Center. For information on the Center, visit sgi-ny.org.

New Lang, Kronos Albums Now Available in the Nonesuch Store

Watershed, k.d. lang's first-ever self-produced album and her first collection of new, self-penned tunes since 2000's Invincible Summer, is now available in the Nonesuch Store. You'll find two versions of Watershed: the full-length album (pictured at left), on which k.d. puts her famous voice "to sunning new effect" (Daily News); and a special, deluxe package (pictured at right) with an additional bonus disc of live recordings and video footage. As always in the Nonesuch Store, with every CD purchase, you'll be able to download the album tracks instantly, either at the standard-sized 128 kbps or larger, audiophile-quality 320 kbps, at no additional charge.

For more on the record, visit nonesuch.com/watershed, where you can listen to three album tracks---"I Dream of Spring," "Je fais la planche," and "Sunday"---watch all six segments of the video interview series with k.d. recently posted to the Nonesuch Journal, and find information on k.d.'s upcoming tour schedule. You can find all the latest and archived Journal postings on k.d. by clicking here.

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Another new addition to the Store this week: Kronos Quartet's recording of composer Terry Riley's The Cusp of Magic, with pipa virtuoso Wu Man. Riley wrote the piece, which the Los Angeles Times says "brims with joy," for the Quartet, his longtime musical collaborators, in 2004. Included with the purchase of the CD on the Nonesuch Store, as an exclusive bonus download, is "Tusen Tankar," a traditional Scandinavian folk song arranged and performed by Kronos.

For all Kronos-related Journal entries, including information on the group's performance later this month in Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall, click here. One of the pieces on the Carnegie Hall program is the world premiere of a piece by Fernando Otero, who also has a new album available in the Nonesuch Store: his "impressive" and "thoroughly original" (Newsday) Nonesuch debut, Página de Buenos Aires.

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Visit nonesuch.com/store for all the albums now available as CDs with instant MP3 downloads: Pat Metheny's Day Trip, The Magnetic Fields' Distortion, the Sweeney Todd motion picture soundtrack, and Jonny Greenwood's score to the film There Will Be Blood.

Video: Toumani Diabate Live at NYC's Bowery Ballroom

Toumani Diabate and his Symmetric Orchestra performed to a packed house at New York City's Bowery Ballroom this past Thursday with label mate Fernando Otero opening the show. You can catch a few minutes of Toumani and the band's electrifying set here:

Another recent performance, a solo showcase by Toumani at the Royal Palace in Seville, Spain, was reviewed in the Financial Times as part of a profile of the Malian kora master. The Times' David Honigmann poetically describes Toumani's performance this way: "Some passages are impossibly fast; others as calm as moonlight reflecting in one of the ponds outside."

The article also revisits some of Toumani's numerous collaborations, including his work on Björk’s latest album, Volta, on which "Diabate's playing weaves confidently through Björk's crowded, stuttering electronic beats," and his Grammy-winning album with Ali Farka Touré, In the Heart of the Moon. One of the songs on Toumani's forthcoming solo album, The Mandé Variations, shares its name with that late, great Malian guitarist. "Ali Farka Touré was unique," Diabate tells Honigmann. "He did a great job all his life."

The Mandé Variations will be available to pre-order in the Nonesuch Store next week, two weeks before the official release date. Fernando Otero's Nonesuch debut, Página de Buenos Aires, is available now in the Nonesuch Store. He'll play his own show at Joe's Pub this Wednesday.

Newsday: Fernando Otero's New Album a "Thoroughly Original" Take on Tango

Argentine-born pianist-composer Fernando Otero kicked off last night's festivities at Bowery Ballroom with an opening set (pictured at right) supporting label mate Toumani Diabate and the Symmetric Orchestra. Otero, performing on keyboard with Nick Danielson on violin, gave a short preview of what's to come in his headlining gig at Joe's Pub this Wednesday, February 6. The New York Times says the upcoming show "should be no less intriguing or kinetic" than Fernando's "impressive new Nonesuch debut," Página de Buenos Aires.

Reviewing the new record, Newsday's Ed Morales says Fernando "plays with tango in a thoroughly original way." Morales pegs Otero as "equally at home collaborating with the Kronos Quartet as he is sitting in with Chico O'Farrill's Jazz Orchestra at Birdland or Paquito D'Rivera's latest configuration."

On Página de Buenos Aires, in one piece rushing "up and down the scales like a poet racing to the roof to catch the sunrise, lugging the accordionlike bandoneón all the way," then next evoking "the kind of loneliness and regret that can only come from living more than 5,000 miles from the nearest authentic tango bar," Otero proves to be "an extremely agile, promising player and composer whose abstract vision is grounded by a soulful sense of time and space."

To read the review, visit newsday.com.

For information on Wednesday's show at Joe's Pub, with video footage of Fernando and Nick performing at an earlier event, visit joespub.com. For more on Fernando's collaboration with Kronos Quartet, El Cerezo (The Cherry Tree), which the Quartet will premiere at Carnegie Hall on February 22, visit carnegiehall.org.

Chicago Tribune: Toumani Diabate Proves to Be a "Foremost Musical Ambassador"

Toumani Diabate performed a special solo set last night for a packed crowd at Manhattan's Other Music record store, and he's set to play New York's Bowery Ballroom tonight joined by his full Symmetric Orchestra, with Argentine-born pianist/composer Fernando Otero opening the show. It's sure to be a stellar set, judging by the band's Tuesday night show in Chicago, which the Chicago Tribune says provided some welcome heat to a frigid winter's night.

Reviewing Tuesday's show for the Tribune, writer Aaron Cohen says the Malian kora player's "virtuoso performance" proved "why he is one of his country's foremost musical ambassadors." Writes Cohen of Toumani and his Symmetric Orchestra:

Under Diabate's low-key direction, the combination of electric guitars and funk bass with the kora and equally ancient six-string ngoni sounded like a natural blend, especially during mid-tempo grooves.

Those grooves invariably gave way to Diabate's compelling solos ... His arpeggios showed he can perform cascades of notes while making this flow fit the context of a tune, and holding down the ensemble's rhythmic foundation.

And for the hardy Chicago bunch who "defied snow and subzero windchill" to attend the show, "the warmth behind it all couldn't have been more welcome."

To read the review, visit chicagotribune.com. For tickets to tonight's show in New York, click here. For information on Toumani's forthcoming release, The Mandé Variations, click here.

Toumani Diabate Performs Free Solo Set at Other Music

Toumani Diabate will be giving a free, solo in-store performance at Manhattan's Other Music record store tonight at 8 PM. He'll be playing tomorrow night at New York's Bowery Ballroom with his band, The Symmetric Orchestra, and label mate Fernando Otero opening, but tonight's in-store is Toumani's only solo performance on this US tour.

For more information on tonight's event, visit othermusic.com.

Toumani Diabate and Fernando Otero to Play NY's Bowery Ballroom

On Toumani Diabate's last tour through New York City, last July, rain forced his scheduled free outdoor concert, planned as part of the Hudson Festival, to move indoors to the more hospitable and intimate setting of the nearby Stuyvesant High School auditorium. This time around, Toumani's keeping things indoors, performing at New York's Bowery Ballroom on Thursday, January 31, with label mate Fernando Otero opening. Brooklyn Vegan marks the upcoming show with a bunch of great pics from last summer's lively Stuyvesant High set. Check them out at brooklynvegan.com. For information on the Bowery show, visit boweryballroom.com.

Toumani will also be giving a short preview of his Thursday night set with a free in-store solo performance at Manhattan's Other Music record store at 8 PM the night before. Visit othermusic.com for more information. 

For further tour dates, click here.

Fernando's Nonesuch debut album, Pagina de Buenos Aires, is available in the Nonesuch Store now. Look for Toumani's forthcoming World Circuit / Nonesuch release, The Mandé Variations, in the Store starting February 26.

Audiophile Audition: Otero's New Album Puts "A Fascinating Twist on Tango"

Audiophile Audition gives five stars to Fernando Otero's Nonesuch debut album, Pagina de Buenos Aires, calling it "the first really new music coming out of the tango milieu since Piazzolla's." Writes reviewer John Sunier, Otero's music

clearly has its roots in tango, but goes beyond that with even more abandon than did the music of Astor Piazzolla. Tango is the origination point, but the instrumental sound is more like an exciting mix of jazz within a classical structure.

The Argentine-born, New York-based composer-pianist shows "a quirky sense of humor" on some tunes that bring to mind Carl Stalling's cartoon scores and turns to classic films for inspiration on some others, creating "truly a fascinating twist on the tango."

To read the full review, visit audaud.com. To hear clips from Pagina de Buenos Aires, click here.

Rochester Democrat & Chronicle: Otero's Nonesuch Debut Is "Pure Excitement and Sensuality"

Fernando Otero's Nonesuch debut, Pagina de Buenos Aires, out this week, is the album Rochester Democrat & Chronicle music critic Anna Reguero says she's listening to right now. She says the Argentine-born composer-pianist's "modern, tango-infused tunes ... are pure excitement and sensuality [that] will have you dancing ochos and adornos in a private milonga." But, she continues:

don't expect schmoozy tango melodies; the music here is serious contemporary music, with tango only as icing. Otero's playing demonstrates he is nothing short of a gifted jazz pianist—he has been building a reputation as a jazzer in New York City, playing recently at Birdland and performing with clarinetist Paquito D'Rivera. His quintet members make his complex music feel breezy and easy.

Reguero also urges readers to be on the lookout for the new piece Otero wrote for the Kronos Quartet, El Cerezo (The Cherry Tree), which the group will premiere at Carnegie Hall on February 22. For program and ticket information to that event, visit carnegiehall.org.

To read Reguero's complete review, visit democratandchronicle.com.

Pagina de Buenos Aires is available now at the Nonesuch Store. With every CD you purchase, you can download high-quality MP3s of the album instantly at no extra cost.

Guardian: Fernando Otero's Nonesuch Debut Leaves Listener Swept Away

The Guardian (UK) gives four stars to Fernando Otero's Nonesuch Records debut, Pagina de Buenos Aires. The Argentinean-born and New York-based pianist-composer cites a number of eclectic sources as influences, from improvisational jazz to early 20th-century classical, but, says the Guardian's John L. Waters, Otero "can't help infusing his music with the complex soul of Argentina's most famous musical export," the tango. Writes Waters:

Using resources that range from chamber ensembles to a 25-strong orchestra, Otero creates a distinctive and unusual sound that's close to classical music (Bartók, Crumb, Adams), yet with the vigour and improvised spirit you associate with jazz and world music.

In his review, Waters points particularly to pieces on the album imbued with "a savage intensity that sweep the listener away."

To read the review, visit arts.guardian.co.uk. To samples songs from the album, click here.

Kronos Quartet to Premiere New Fernando Otero Piece at Carnegie Hall

When Kronos Quartet returns to Carnegie Hall next month, the group will give the world premiere performance of label mate Fernando Otero's El Cerezo (The Cherry Tree), which the Argentinean-born composer wrote for Kronos.

The program for the February 22 concert in Carnegie's Zankel Hall will also feature the first public performance of John Adams's Fellow Traveler, which the composer wrote at Kronos' request for Peter Sellars's 50th birthday; the world premiere of two Carnegie Hall co-commissions, including one by the recipient of the fourth Kronos Under 30 Project commission; and the New York premiere of Clint Mansell's Requiem for a Dream Suite.

For complete program and ticket information, visit carnegiehall.org.

Otero's Nonesuch Records debut, Pagina de Buenos Aires, will be available at the Nonesuch Store starting next week. Kronos Quartet's latest offering, The Cusp of Magic, with music by Terry Riley, is set for release in February.

Fernando Otero Performs Works from His "Expressive" Nonesuch Debut

Argentine composer and pianist Fernando Otero will release his Nonesuch debut, Pagina de Buenos Aires, on January 15, and Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel staff writer David Cázares says the album "captures the spirit and style of tango, one of the world's most intriguing dances." But more than simply repeating what's already been done, "Otero fuses the genre with classical music and jazz." Cázares says the songs on the record are "frenetic," then "pensive" and recognizes some of the inspirations behind the music:

Influenced by Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla, Brazilian composer Egberto Gismonti, and Uruguayan multi-instrumentalist Hugo Fattoruso, Otero is an accomplished composer who frequently uses changes in tempo and mood to express his ideas ... His music is demanding and expressive—a fitting tribute to the dance.

For more of Cázares's review, visit sun-sentinel.com.

Fernando will be performing pieces from the upcoming record this Monday, December 3, with his X-Tango Quintet—Nick Danielson, violin; Inbal Segev, cello; Victor Prieto, accordion; Pablo Aslan, acoustic bass—at the Barrow Street Theatre in New York's Greenwich Village. For more information, visit barrowstreettheatre.com.