by Mike Telin

When the 13th Annual Latin Grammy Awards are held on November 15 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, Alan Bise and Bruce Egre of Cleveland’s Azica records will be anxiously awaiting the results of their nomination in two categories for their recent release, Masters of Bandoneon. The disc itself has been nominated for Best Tango Album, and one of its tracks, Stringago by Carlos Franzetti, played by the Cuartetango String Quartet, has been nominated for Best Classical Contemporary Composition (listen to two of the tracks here). These nominations bring a relationship that began as a chance meeting between violinist and Cuartetango founder Leonardo Suarez Paz and Alan Bise to a fitting conclusion — at least for this recording project.

“I first met Leonardo after the performance of Romance de Tango that he created for the Cleveland Museum of Art’s VIVA! & Gala series in 2009,” Bise told me over coffee. That performance featured Paz’s award-winning string quartet Cuartetango, as well as eight dancers. Bise said that he struck up a conversation with Paz, one thing led to another, and soon they were working together on the recording project. The project also took Bise on his first visit to Buenos Aires, a trip that he calls life-changing. “First, the musical life in the city is intoxicating, and Tango is the national soundtrack of Argentina that plays 24/7.” [Read more…]