Maria Cangiano

Singer and songwriter Maria Cangiano has a unique voice within a new generation of Argentine musicians who combine a rich Latin American folk and Afro heritage with classical and jazz musical traditions. Her musical journey mirrors her gypsy life, being a daughter of Italian immigrants with Middle Eastern roots, raised in Argentina and exposed to tango and South American folk music, who came to the US and discovered jazz, blues, and Afro music. Inspired by her Neapolitan grandfather, who was an opera singer, Maria Cangiano had classical training and performed many mezzo-soprano opera roles at opera theaters in New York City, such as Regina Opera, Dicapo Opera, and Amato Opera. Since 2001, she became one of the very few tango singers in New York, collaborating with many well-known musicians from the New York jazz, classical, and tango scene, such as Octavio Brunetti, Fernando Otero, Pedro Giraudo, Victor Prieto, Beledo, Julio Santillan, Raul Jaurena, Tito Castro, and Juan Pablo Jofre Romarion, among others. She has performed old and new tango music in New York's major venues, such as Blue Note, Joe's Pub, Nuyorican Poets Café, Bowery Poetry Club, Cornelia Street Café, Tischman Auditorium, Argentine Consulate, Night and Day, DROM, Tutuma Social Club, and others. In 2009/10, she released her first CD, "Ballads for My Life and Death: Tribute to Piazzolla," at New York and Milan's Blue Note. Moved by the beauty of Latin American poetry, Maria has composed new songs with the lyrics of different women poets and her own. Her new CD, "Heart of a Woman" (Corazón de Mujer), was released in 2012 by EPSA, one of the major Argentine record labels. "Heart of a Woman" is a journey to the depth of a woman's heart, her emotions, strength, and wisdom. It gathers original songs with lyrics by poets such as Alfonsina Storni, Gabriela Mistral, Maria Fernanda Hubeaut, and Maria Cangiano herself, with original arrangements by two major Argentine musicians: guitarist/composer Quique Sinesi and percussionist/composer Quintino Cinalli. It is being released in Argentina and the US now.