The Ingredients of La Cocina de Tango
← Back to the album- The Musicians
- Palais de Glace
- Ruta montañosa
- Why La Cocina de Tango?
- Aníbal Troilo
- Marrón y azul
- Chau, París
- Leyenda
- Maestros
- Ten Years
The Musicians
Every recording is shaped by the musicians who bring the music to life.
La Cocina de Tango features:
- Nayiri Piloyan — violin
- Mayu Funaba — piano
- Carlos Maldonado Cisneros — double bass
- Alex Roitman — bandoneon
I’m very grateful to have made this album with such exceptional musicians. Each brought a distinctive voice, energy, and musical sensitivity to the project, and the recording would not be what it is without them.
This is the Alex Roitman Tango Ensemble behind La Cocina de Tango.
↑ Back to topRecorded at the Palais de Glace
La Cocina de Tango was recorded at the beautiful Palais de Glace in Stowe, Vermont, thanks to the generosity of Joe Fish and the Argentine Tango Society. For several days, the four of us had the chance to step away from our everyday routines and focus entirely on making music together.
Surrounded by the Green Mountains, it was an inspiring place to record, rehearse, and exchange ideas. The photographs capture a few moments from our time in Stowe, where this album came to life.
↑ Back to topRuta montañosa
Ruta montañosa is a piece from La Cocina de Tango, inspired by several years of attending the Stowe Tango Music Festival. During the festival, many musicians stayed along Mountain Road, the scenic road that winds through Stowe toward Spruce Peak.
Those daily drives through the Green Mountains inspired the piece, and it felt especially meaningful to return to Stowe to record La Cocina de Tango at the Palais de Glace.
Why La Cocina de Tango?
The title of this album is a tribute to the Stowe Tango Music Festival and the remarkable musical environment it created. At the heart of the festival was the Tango Kitchen. The name was no accident—it was the place where tango was "cooked."
Purpose-built for the festival, the Tango Kitchen featured a large rehearsal hall upstairs and practice rooms below. Musicians spent long days there exchanging ideas, trying new arrangements, preparing for concerts, and simply making music together.
During the recording of La Cocina de Tango, we returned there between sessions to rehearse, experiment, and continue a tradition that had become part of the festival for so many of us.
Today the building is known as Marabú Norte, honoring the legendary Marabú club in Buenos Aires, where Aníbal Troilo and many other iconic tango orchestras performed. The original Marabú has since been revived as a venue for today's tango orchestras, making the new name a fitting bridge between tango's past and present.
My album takes its title from the Tango Kitchen. It also includes an original composition, La Cocina de Tango, inspired by the music, the camaraderie, and the lasting friendships that grew there over the years.
↑ Back to topAníbal Troilo
The opening track on La Cocina de Tango has an interesting history. Aníbal Troilo was written by Julio De Caro as a tribute to Troilo.
I discovered a rare recording from the album Troilo Inédito of Troilo's own orchestra. It wasn't simply another arrangement—Troilo had made the piece unmistakably his own while preserving the elegance and spirit of De Caro's original.
The recording was scratchy, noisy, and of poor audio quality, but it revealed a remarkable arrangement. The moment I heard it, I knew I wanted to revive it. I spent many hours listening, replaying, and deciphering the recording until the arrangement gradually emerged.
Over the following years, I adapted it for several different ensembles before recording this quartet version as the opening track on La Cocina de Tango.
The excerpt below offers a glimpse of this beautiful arrangement brought back to life.
↑ Back to topMarrón y azul
Some pieces stay with you for years. Marrón y azul, written by Astor Piazzolla, is one of those pieces for me. Even today, the meaning of its title remains something of a mystery.
Several years ago, my friend Sami Pirttilahti created a beautiful arrangement of it for two bandoneons. In 2023, Sami and I met in Buenos Aires to record it, along with my arrangement of Aníbal Troilo. We were happy with the performances, but the recording conditions left much to be desired.
Two years later, I visited Sami in Finland, where we finally had the opportunity to record Marrón y azul again in a space that did justice to the music. That recording is currently being edited and mixed.
For La Cocina de Tango, I made a new arrangement of Marrón y azul for quartet. The excerpt below is from that recording.
↑ Back to topChau, París
The title Chau, París tells an important story. Astor Piazzolla wrote the piece as he prepared to leave Paris and return to Buenos Aires after studying with Nadia Boulanger. Her encouragement to embrace his own musical voice became one of the defining moments of his career.
Originally written for string orchestra, piano, harp, and bandoneon, I adapted Piazzolla's original arrangement for several different ensembles over the years. It began as a duo, then a solo version, later a sextet, and finally the quartet version that appears on La Cocina de Tango.
Just two months after recording the album, I had the opportunity to perform Chau, París with the Worcester Symphony Orchestra in its original instrumentation—with strings, piano, harp, and bandoneon.
After living with the piece in so many different forms, it was a special experience to finally perform it as Piazzolla had arranged it. The excerpt below is from the quartet version recorded for La Cocina de Tango.
↑ Back to topLeyenda
In 2018, Sami Pirttilahti and I attended the Stowe Tango Music Festival, where we had the opportunity to meet one of the great bandoneon masters, Julio Oscar Pane. Pane was also a judge at that year's Che Bandoneón Competition, where Sami won first place. I was honored to receive third.
Inspired by the opportunity to work with Pane and perform his music with the maestro himself, Sami composed a piece dedicated to him, originally titled A Don Julio Oscar Pane. Over the years, he continued refining it before eventually renaming it Leyenda. The dedication, however, remained. In 2024, Sami sent Pane a recording of Leyenda performed by Quinteto Tango Berlin and received a wonderful response from the maestro. Just a few months later, Pane passed away, but not before hearing the piece that had been written in his honor and giving it his blessing.
That same year, I began working on my own quartet arrangement of Leyenda. Before I started, I asked Sami if he was comfortable with us including it on the album. He said it would be an honor. I didn't just adapt the piece for quartet—I also made a few changes that I felt strengthened its overall shape. I first performed the arrangement in December 2024, and we recorded it for La Cocina de Tango in August 2025. After hearing the finished recording, Sami told me he liked the arrangement.
I wanted Leyenda to close the album because, to me, it is a modern tango masterpiece written by a good friend whose work I deeply admire. The excerpt below is from the album recording.
↑ Back to topTango Kitchen Maestros
One of the things that made the Tango Kitchen so special was what happened after the classes were over. Late at night, it wasn't unusual to find the festival maestros rehearsing together. This photo shows Héctor Del Curto, Pablo Estigarribia, Pablo Agri, and Ignacio Varchausky doing exactly that.
Years later, while preparing La Cocina de Tango, Mayu and I rehearsed in that very same room. By then, Pablo Estigarribia had been one of Mayu's maestros, and Héctor Del Curto one of mine.
Moments like that remind me that tango is passed from one generation to the next—not only through performances, but through rehearsals, conversations, friendships, and countless hours spent making music together. I'm grateful to have been a small part of that tradition, and to all the musicians and teachers who continue to keep it alive.
↑ Back to topTen Years
Ten years before the release of La Cocina de Tango, I attended my first Stowe Tango Music Festival. I had no idea how much that experience would shape the next decade of my musical life. It introduced me to remarkable teachers, lifelong friends, and a community that continues to inspire me today.
The Tango Kitchen, the music, the musicians, and the friendships described on this page all grew out of that experience. Over the years, the festival became an important part of my musical life and, eventually, part of the story of this album.
La Cocina de Tango was released in August 2026, ten years after that first festival. I'm deeply grateful to everyone who has been part of this journey. This album is my way of saying thank you.
↑ Back to top