Astor Pantaleón Piazzolla was an Argentine tango composer, bandoneon player, and arranger. His works revolutionized the traditional tango into a new style termed nuevo tango, incorporating elements from jazz and classical music. A virtuoso bandoneonist, he regularly performed his own compositions with a variety of ensembles. In 1992, American music critic Stephen Holden described Piazzolla as "the world's foremost composer of Tango music".
The Four Seasons is a group of four violin concerti by Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi, each of which gives musical expression to a season of the year. These were composed around 1718–1720, when Vivaldi was the court chapel master in Mantua. They were published in 1725 in Amsterdam, together with eight additional concerti, as Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione.
The Kronos Quartet is an American string quartet based in San Francisco. It has been in existence with a rotating membership of musicians for 50 years. The quartet covers a very broad range of musical genres, including contemporary classical music. More than 1,000 works have been written for it.
Lera Auerbach is a Soviet-born Austrian-American classical composer, conductor and concert pianist.
Carlos Prieto is a Mexican cellist and writer, born in Mexico City. He has received enthusiastic public acclaim and won excellent reviews for his performances throughout the United States, Europe, Russia and the former Soviet Union, Asia, and Latin America. The New York Times review of his Carnegie Hall debut raved, "Prieto knows no technical limitations and his musical instincts are impeccable."
Giora Feidman is an Argentine-born Israeli clarinetist who specializes in klezmer music.
Sérgio Assad is a Brazilian guitarist, composer, and arranger who often performs with his brother, Odair, in the guitar duo Sérgio and Odair Assad, commonly referred to as the Assad Brothers or Duo Assad. Their younger sister Badi is also a guitarist. Assad is the father of composer/singer/pianist Clarice Assad. He is married to Angela Olinto.
James Zuill Bailey, better known as Zuill Bailey is an American Grammy Award-winning cello soloist, chamber musician, and artistic director. A graduate of the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University and the Juilliard School, he has appeared in recital and with major orchestras internationally. He is a professor of cello and Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Texas at El Paso. Bailey’s extensive recording catalogue are released on TELARC, Avie, Steinway and Sons, Octave, Delos, Albany, Sono Luminus, Naxos, Azica, Concord, EuroArts, ASV, Oxingale and Zenph Studios.
Ken Filiano is an American jazz and orchestral bassist based in Brooklyn, New York.
Libertango is a composition by tango composer and bandoneon player Astor Piazzolla, recorded and published in 1974 in Milan. The title is a portmanteau merging "Libertad" and "tango", symbolizing Piazzolla's break from classical tango to tango nuevo.
Winter Was Hard is a studio album by the Kronos Quartet. It contains compositions by Aulis Sallinen, Terry Riley, Arvo Pärt, Anton Webern, John Zorn, John Lurie, Ástor Piazzolla, Alfred Schnittke, and Samuel Barber.
José Bragato was an Italian-born Argentine cellist, composer, conductor, arranger and musical archivist who, in his early career, was principal cellist in the Colón Theatre orchestra in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Apart from his involvement in classical music he also performed for many years in a number of Ástor Piazzolla's Nuevo tango ensembles where his cello solos, which had never before featured in tango, put him in the vanguard of Nuevo tango from its birth in the 1950s. Since then he has done numerous and varied arrangements of Piazzolla's compositions.
Jascha Lieberman is a Polish violinist and violist. He studied with Stefan Kamasa, Giora Feidman, and Lepold Kozłowski. Lieberman was a member of the string quartet conducted by Krzysztof Penderecki.
The Ébène Quartet is a French string quartet based in Boulogne-Billancourt, France.
Gregor Huebner is a violinist, pianist and composer. He performs solo and with several ensembles including El Violin Latino, Sirius Quartet, Berta Epple and Salsafuerte. From 1985 to 2012 he was a member of Tango Five. He is a professor of composition at the University for Music and Theater in Munich, Germany. In 2017 he received the Grand Prize for New York Philharmonic's New World Initiative Composition Challenge for his composition “New World, Nov 9. 2016.”
Doron Toister is a cellist, pianist, composer and classical music arranger. He leads the cello group of the Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon LeZion and Israeli Opera Orchestra.
Per Arne Glorvigen is a Norwegian musician and composer, particularly known as a bandoneon and tango player. He is mentioned as one of the world's leading contemporary bandoneon players and "wizard of the buttons".
Stephen Goss is a Welsh composer, guitarist and academic. His compositional output includes orchestral and choral works, chamber music, and solo pieces. His music draws freely on a number of styles and genres. He is particularly known for his guitar music, which is widely performed and recorded.
Mathilde Sternat is a French cellist and arranger.
The Walkenrieder Kreuzgangkonzerte have been the annual music festival of Walkenried Abbey in Lower Saxony Göttingen district since 1983.
