Tango-inspired Mass to be performed by Auckland choir

The choir will be hosted at Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral in Parnell on December 13, as it performs the Mass by Argentine composer Martín Palmeri. Jono Palmer will direct the choir, with soprano soloist Morag Atchison and Auckland tango ensemble Aotango.

Speaking to RNZ Concert ahead of the event, Mr Palmer said he’s not planning on asking the choir to dance as they sing, but there will be free tango lessons before the concert included in the ticket price, so he can’t rule out the audience getting to their feet.

Mr Palmer said he hadn’t heard of Palmeri’s Misatango until Aotango’s founder, accordion player Grayson Masefield, introduced him to it.

Originating in the bordellos of Argentina and Uruguay, at one point the Catholic Church tried to ban the dance. However, Mr Palmer said Pope Francis – the first Argentine Pope – arranged to have Misatango performed during his pontificate. The late Pope was something of a fan of the tango.

“I like it a lot. It’s something that comes from within me,” Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the future Pope Francis, said in an extensive 2010 interview published in the book The Jesuit, by Sergio Rubin and Francesca Ambrogetti, according to a report by Patheos.

In the interview, the then-Cardinal Bergoglio revealed himself to be a connoisseur of the history of the tango. He said he was a fan of the great tango singers Carlos Gardel and Julio Sosa and the early-20th-century orchestra of Juan D’Arienzo.

As a good pastor, he related the world of tango to that of religion in the interview, and expressed admiration for Ada Falcon, a famous tango dancer who left it behind to become a nun.

“Do you know how to dance tango?” Cardinal Bergoglio was asked.

“Yes, I danced it as a young man, although I preferred the milonga,” he said, referring to the faster-paced country music that was one of the early roots of tango.

The future Pope said he had a girlfriend then, and they would go dancing together with a group of friends, but the romance ended “when I discovered my religious vocation”.

FULL STORY

A very Latin Mass (Radio New Zealand)

Among Other Things, Pope Francis Loved Dancing The Tango… | Frank Weathers (Patheos)

Pope Francis danced the tango with the global Catholic Church amid its culture wars (The Conversation)