JAVS Spring 2017

Feature Article

The Genesis of Benjamin Yusupov’s Viola Tango Rock Concerto Andrea Carolina del Pilar Sánchez Ruiz

Violist Anibal Dos Santos performing Benjamin Yusupov’s Viola Tango Rock Concerto with the Bogotá Philharmonic Orchestra; Ricardo Jaramillo, conductor. Image provided courtesy of Kike Barona.

the unprecedented element of dance, all of which were requested by the commissioning violist, Maxim Vengerov.

Many concertos for viola have been written over the last two centuries. Bowen, Hindemith, Stamitz, Zelter, Bartók, Walton, and others have all written concertos for viola, but none of them requires the performer to dance or to play an electric instrument. Viola Tango Rock Concerto (2003) by Benjamin Yusupov is one of the first concertos for viola to be premiered in the twenty-first century. The essential ideas of this concerto are multiculturalism, the fusion of multiple genres, and

In this article, I will attempt to trace the genesis of Viola Tango Rock Concerto, and will analyze the score in order to identify how Yusupov blends different styles of music and compositional techniques. I will also discuss how Yusupov, in collaboration with Vengerov, created a new concerto for viola and orchestra, breaking the taboos and

Journal of the American Viola Society / Vol. 33, No. 1, Spring 2017

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