Piazzolla Festival

Born in 1921 in Buenos Aires, Astor Piazzolla already had an international career as a composer of film scores and a chamber musician behind him when he developed »nuevo tango« around 1961. With his quintet – in which he played the bandoneon – Piazzolla began to travel the world as a »missionary of tango«. His first performances in Germany in the early 1980s were hailed as a sensation. Piazzolla took music that was often played in dubious nightclubs and was generally disparaged, and transformed it into a great form of contemporary art – enriching it with classical harmony and instrumentation, but also incorporating jazz, Baroque and contemporary music influences.