Addition to the Main Programme!
Saturday 20th of September at Pakkahuone Hall, Orchestra Bandola and Olli-Pekka Ketonen with special guest Martin Alvarado, concert starts at 11.00 pm.

The concert of World of Tango Festival's Orchestra on 20th of September at 11.00 pm at Pakkahuone Hall has unfortunately been cancelled because of a Force Majeure reason.

Honourable Audience,

The World of Tango Festival is held in Tampere, Finland between 19th and 27th of September 2008. This new kind of tango festival was held for the first time in the year 2007. The festival gathers together the best tango performers from Finland as well as abroad. The main program of the festival will last for three days between 19th and 21st of September at Pakkahuone Hall and Restaurant Klubi. Afterwards the festival will flow into the cosy and charming cafés and restaurants of the Tampere city centre until the 27th of September.

The World of Tango Festival brings together all forms of art, such as music, dance, theatre and visual arts including photography and films. The music program of the festival presents both Finnish and international artists, with an emphasis on Finnish and Argentine tango. Our goal is to create opportunities for developing tango music and urban forms of folk music. We give each artist a free choice of interpreting tango as they wish. During the festival the audience will hear a lot of new tango compositions and arrangements. We want to offer our audience a chance to enjoy both concert tango and danceable tango.

Originally tango was born among the poor immigrants in Buenos Aires and Montevideo. The history of Argentine tango is also part of the history of European immigrants, for it illustrates the merging of different cultures through music. In the beginning of the 20th century tango music spread into Europe with a constantly growing popularity. In 1920 an Argentine tango virtuoso Carlos Grandel made tango well-known all over the world. The tango culture spread, but from time to time it also lost its popularity. In the early 1980’s tango had its renaissance era, thanks to an Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla, the father of Nuevo tango. His influence is shown also in the interpretations of the Finnish tango orchestras.

At the moment tango is a world-wide phenomenon, and its significance is undeniable. The Argentine people have Alfredo Le Pera, Mariano Mores and Carlos Gardel, the Uruguayans have Francisco Canaro. The Finnish tango legends are Toivo Kärki, Unto Mononen and Olavi Virta. The glory of these masters of tango still lives in the memories of people today, and yet they continue to evoke the same feelings in people’s minds as they did decades ago.

I would like to invite you all warmly welcome to enjoy tango!