[2026-06-12] Marimba Night — Piazzolla's Histoire du tango, Mari Miura's Tropical Café and more

(BassFluteNight Vol.72)

Date: Friday, 12 June 2026. Doors 18:30; concert 19:00.
Venue: Artist Salon “Dolce”, Tokyo
Tickets: All seats unreserved: 4,000 yen

Performers

Marimba: Junko Sakimura, Memmi Ochi, 伊原由加子

Flute: 渡瀬P英彦

Programme

El Bolonchón
Domínguez: Humanidad
Necke: Csikós Post
Mari Miura: Tropical Café
Varlamov: The Red Sarafan
Dvořák: Goin' Home
Piazzolla: Histoire du tango

Enquiries
Dolce Musical Instruments, Tokyo: 03-5909-1771
Sankyo Flute: 03-5960-5750

Supported by Dolce Musical Instruments Tokyo, Sankyo Flutes and Prima Gakki

Programme notes

Music grows out of people's lives.
Festival dances, landscapes encountered on a journey, longing for a distant home, life's joys and sorrows: today's programme travels through Mexico, Germany, Japan, Russia, the Czech lands and Argentina, exploring songs and dances that have grown alongside everyday life.
The first half begins with works evoking Latin America, a region that might be called the marimba's home, before moving to a colourful suite by a Japanese composer. In the second half, works portraying a young person's feelings at a turning point in life and longing for home lead us to Piazzolla's history of the tango.
We hope you enjoy listening to the human stories that live within each work.

El Bolonchón (arranged by Steve Chavez)

El Bolonchón is a traditional dance familiar in Chiapas, southern Mexico. Originally it depicts a struggle between a jaguar (bolon) and a snake (chón). With its cheerful rhythm and approachable melody, it has enlivened local festivals and celebrations.
Chiapas is known as a centre of marimba culture in Mexico. This work carries the festive atmosphere of people gathering, talking and dancing. Enjoy its lively rhythms and vivid musical colours.

Alberto Domínguez (1906–1975): Humanidad (arranged by Laurence Kaptain)

Mexican composer Alberto Domínguez left many classics of Latin music, including Frenesí. Humanidad, whose title means “humanity” or “humankind”, is filled with a beautifully singing melody and warm emotion.
Today's version was arranged by the American marimbist and educator Laurence Kaptain. Respecting the original's rich lyricism, it reveals new qualities through the marimba's gentle sound. Enjoy a world in which the passion and tenderness of Latin music coexist.

Hermann Necke (1850–1912): Csikós Post

This is a representative work by German composer Hermann Necke. Its title means “the csikós's post carriage”, and it vividly portrays a mail coach travelling through nineteenth-century Europe.
With rhythms recalling horses' hooves, a briskly running melody and a touch of humour, it has remained popular around the world since its publication. Enjoy this friendly, cheerful musical journey.

Mari Miura: Tropical Café

Mari Miura has written many popular works for wind band and chamber ensembles.
Set in a tropical café, this four-movement suite portrays people's lives and feelings in colourful music with touches of Latin music and jazz.
I. Bossa Nova on the Beach
A sunlit beach, the sound of waves, the bustle of people and their conversations: an open, tropical landscape unfolds to a bossa nova rhythm.
II. Anniversary Waltz
An elderly couple celebrating their wedding anniversary dance once again to the waltz they danced when they first met. Time passes gently and warmly.
III. Song of Homesickness
The band begins to play. People working in a foreign land think of their distant homes. This is the suite's most lyrical movement.
IV. Happy Samba
Today is carnival. People in colourful costumes fill the streets and keep dancing to the music. The brilliant energy of samba brings the first half to a cheerful close.

— Interval —

Alexander Varlamov (1801–1848): The Red Sarafan

This is known as a classic of Russian song.
A sarafan is a traditional Russian women's garment. In this song, a young daughter asks her mother not to sew the red sarafan for her wedding preparations. Rather than preparing for marriage, she wants to keep singing and dancing with her friends and enjoy the freedom of youth. The song expresses her attachment to that youth and the complex emotions of approaching a turning point in life.
Its beautiful, approachable melody has been widely sung since the nineteenth century, and it is now familiar almost as a Russian folk song.

Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904): Goin' Home

This celebrated melody comes from the second movement of Dvořák's Symphony No.9, From the New World.
Dvořák's pupil William Arms Fisher later added words to the melody, making it widely known as Goin' Home. In Japan it is known as Ieji, or “The Way Home”.
Its warm melody, as if remembering a faraway home, continues to touch people across countries and generations.

Astor Piazzolla (1921–1992)Histoire du tango

A major work of Piazzolla's later years, Histoire du tango was written for flute and guitar, as tango itself was played in its early days. Its four movements trace tango's development from its beginnings to the present.

I. Bordel 1900 (Brothel, 1900)
Tango was born in Buenos Aires in 1882. This movement depicts the lively chatter of French, Italian and Spanish prostitutes in a brothel as they tease the policemen, thieves, sailors and good-for-nothings who come to visit them.

II. Café 1930
Tango gradually develops from music for dancing into music for listening. People stop dancing and quietly listen to the music. This is a beautiful movement of deep lyricism.

III. Nightclub 1960
Influenced by jazz and bossa nova, this tango belongs to a new urban culture. Its rhythms become more complex and modern sounds enter the music.

IV. Concert d'aujourd'hui 1990 (Today's Concert, 1990)
Piazzolla's distinctive artistic world unfolds in a fusion of tradition with modern music, including Bartók and Stravinsky. Motifs from the first movement return.

Tracing around a century of tango's history, this masterpiece is a fitting conclusion to today's concert.
Our journey began with Mexican songs and dances, passed through a young Russian woman's dreams and longing for home, and finally reached Argentine tango. We hope you will hear the shared currents of joy, nostalgia and vitality flowing through music that has grown in many different places.