As a cellist, you inevitably come across Astor Piazzolla's Grand Tango, his only original composition for cello and piano. I was immediately enchanted. Some time later, I travelled to Caracas for concerts with the Simon Bolivar Orchestra and met the famous composer Federico Ruiz. He was immediately prepared to arrange Piazzolla's "Adios Nonino" for cello and piano for me. Each subsequent tango drew me deeper and deeper into this cosmos. From this idea of combining South American temperament with European depth and my classical conception of sound, the CD programme Pasión Tango for cello and piano was finally created. The programme was enthusiastically received in live concerts in many countries, from Europe, Japan, and China to North and South America. The next step was a logical continuation: to play tangos with the cello again, but with a classical orchestra instead of the piano, in order to explore the tonal and emotional potential of this repertoire even more deeply - the result is Pasión Tango - el Gran. Friedrich Kleinhapl