Argentine singer MARIA CANGIANO has just release her first CD revisiting Astor Piazzolla's songs. Ballads for My Life & Death is a compilation of unknown and known Piazzolla's songs with original and refreshing arrangements by a unique generation of young Argentine well-known composers: Fernando Otero, Julio Santillan and Emilio Solla. From the perspective of these composers/arrangers, the songs explore not only Classical, Tango and Jazz influences on Piazzolla's music but also unknown ones, such as Folklore and Candombe ones. Cangiano's voice and interpretation bring an new light to the poetic, surrealistic and dramatic nature of their lyrics. The CD has original designs by Argentine most famous cartoonist Hermenegildo Sabat.
Called “Edith Piaf of Tango” MARIA CANGIANO has a unique voice within a new generation of Argentine musicians in New York. Her musical journey mirrors her gypsy life, being a daughter of Italian immigrants from middle eastern roots, raised in Argentina and exposed to Tango and South American folk music, who came to the US and discovered Jazz, Blues and Afro music. Born in Buenos Aires from Neapolitan family, she came to the US to do her PhD in Latin American History and upon completing it, she left the academia for the performing arts. She became a Buddhist and started chanting Nam Myoho Rengue kyo (www.sgi-usa.org) to achieve her dream. Inspired by her Neapolitan grandfather who was an opera singer, Maria Cangiano had a classical training and performed many mezzo soprano opera roles at Opera Theaters in New York City, such as Regina Opera, Dicapo Opera and Amato Opera.
Charles Handelman, an opera reviewer, has said "MARIA is a major mezzo-contralto voice with bright and clear tones throughout the middle and upper register, and a low register that reminds me of either Jerome Hines or Gottlob Frick (well,actually more like Conchita Supervia combined with Elena Obratsova).”
In 2001 she started to interpret and performed traditional and new tango songs, a repertory little known in the US. She directed and performed her own one-woman show, called Tango in Black and Red with her first band El Cuarteto de Maria
" The Brooklyn Press has said “Tango in Black and Red” " was an “outstanding, dramatic tango performance. Overall, the depth and power of Cangiano’s woeful, soulful voice brought the nostalgic of the music to life.”
During the last 7 years, Maria has performed old and new tango music in New York major venues, such as Nuyorican Poets Café, Bowery Poetry Club, Cornelia Street Café, Joe's Pub, Tischman Auditorium, Argentine Consulate, DROM, among other.
REVIEW OF HER CD RELEASE SHOW AT DROM, NYC
"With her big, powerful contralto and a vibrato that she commanded with effortless ease, Cangiano was seemingly born to sing the Piazzolla songbook that she explores on her new cd. Wednesday night at Drom, she delivered a mix of iconic and obscure Piazzolla with dramatic intensity and a feel for the material that bordered on telepathic. But as much heavy lifting as there was going on, Cangiano saved her most dramatic flourishes, including a surprisingly impressive upper register, for those few moments where she had to take a crescendo and then deliver another one on top of that" LUCID CULTURE, DECEMBER 2008
Thanks and hope to greet you at the Latino American Poetic Short Film Festival Dedicated to Bimbo Rivas at The Nuyorican Poets Café Tuesdays 7:30PM Sept 16, 23, 30 & Oct 7, 2008 visit Lapsff. com
