Of Italian descent,
Pietro Antonio Soave's (Peter Soave) earliest memories are of music played on an accordion, and he insists that by age three, he was certain of his life's work. At age sixteen, Soave began to enter international accordion competitions and quickly learned the limitations of the piano accordion. This instrument had been superceded by the chromatic button accordion developed in Russia for classical music, the bayan. This was the instrument used by most competitors. Recognizing that his piano accordion was not competitive in this arena, Soave returned to America and began a period of intense study to master the more complex bayan.

Returning to Europe, Soave swept first place in the four major international competitions in England, Germany, Italy, and East Germany, an unheard of feat for a virtuoso of any instrument. Deeply inspired by the music of Argentinean composer Astor Piazzolla, Soave began including the characteristic tango accordion, the bandoneón, in his performances.

Mr. Soave tours extensively in both Europe and the United States. His recent performance with the Brooklyn Philharmonic under Robert Spano was a critical success. His orchestral engagements this season include the Grand Rapids, Phoenix, Napa Valley, and Detroit Symphonies, and the Minneapolis, Indianapolis, and Ohio Chamber Orchestras. Internationally, Mr. Soave appeared this season with the Orquesta Sinfonica de Puerto Rico, the San Salvador Philharmonic, the Zagreb Soloists, the Belgrade Philharmonic, and the Romanian State Orchestra. Some of the conductors with whom Soave has worked are Duilio Dobrin, Guillermo Figueroa, Neeme Jarvi, Eri Klas, James Levine, Leone Magiera, Hermann Michael, Leo Najar, and Robert Spano. His most recent solo recital was at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. For the only North American appearance, in 1999, of the "Three Tenors" (Pavarotti, Domingo and Carreras), Soave performed as the featured bandoneónist. His latest appearance with Mr. Pavarotti was in September 2003.

Mr. Soave recently completed a recording of Piazzolla's Five Tango Sensations with the Rucner String Quartet of Zagreb, as well as, a recording of that composer's Concerto for Bandoneón and Orchestra with the Moscow State Symphony. Most recently, Soave recorded the Piazzolla Concerto with the Zagreb Soloists for imminent release.

Since June of 2001, Mr. Soave has been touring with saxophonist James Carter. Their appearances have included the North Sea Jazz Festival, Montreal Jazz Festival, and the Library of Congress (May 2003) in Washington D.C.

On a creative level, Mr. Soave has collaborated with Aldermaro Romero, the foremost composer of Venezuela (senator as well), premiering many of his works. In 2001, Soave performed Romero's Piazzollana-Homàge à Piazzolla (written for Soave) at l'Accademia de Santa Cecilia in Rome. In 2003, Romero dedicated his latest compositions "Tango Furioso" and "Soavecito" for Accordion and Orchestra to Peter Soave.

In 2001, Peter Soave received the Detroit Music Award for Best Classical Recording (performing Carmine Coppola's Concerto for Accordion and Orchestra with the Emerald Sinfonietta) and in 2003 he received the Detroit Music Award for Best Classical Instrumentalist.

Peter Soave has been a Guest Faculty Member of the Conservatoire National de Marseille in France and is Adjunct Associate Professor of Bandoneón and Bayan at Detroit's Wayne State University.

"...there is no contest: Peter Soave is the greatest accordionist in United States history. Period."

From Peter Soave web site

New CD with Peter Soave

First CD with Peter Soave

CD Review:
Peter Soave and the Rucner Quartet
Tango Moods

Peter Soave, bandoneon
Joze Haluza,violin
Josip Novosel, violin
Dragan Rucner, viola
Snjezana Rucner, cello

Program:  

Adios Nonino
Five Tango Sensations
Asleep
Loving
Anxiety
Despertar
Fear

All compositions by Astor Piazzolla
total time: 33'43"
released: 1999
review date: December 1999
label: Jazzette BPCD042

Review by Dr. Paul A. Magistretti:

This new CD is wonderful - a brilliant addition to Astor Piazzolla's discography!

With the proliferation of performers attempting Piazzolla these days, new additions are not always a cause for celebration. Tango Moods is unqualifiedly passionate, powerful and deeply moving!
While the maestro's music is never less than intriguing he has in recent years become a commercial force with all the positive and negative consequences. CDs are stacking up in record stores, so that whatever has been recorded by him (no matter how technically poor or artistically flawed) appears. Caveat emptor. Furthermore, various and sundry artists are coming out of the woodwork doing his stuff, similar to the way pop artists cover hit tunes. We may one day hear Wayne Newton or Aerosmith doing Piazzolla's Greatest Hits. So far, we can tolerate obvious commercialism and the intrusion of different solo instrumentation. It can even be interesting to hear familiar compositions skewed by virtue of different lead sonorities - flute, piano, guitar, violin, cello, etc. Yo-Yo Ma (Soul of the Tango) does a good job that almost belies the advice of his handlers: "Piazzolla is hot, Yo, jump in now!" A real problem arises when interpreters who are neither tango divos nor musically equipped wander into Astor's sinewy, sensuous musical terra of noir and passion. Case in point - Daniel Baremboim's CD. While Baremboim is Argentinean, a fine classical pianist and a talented conductor, his feeling for the tango - despite liner notes proclaiming a norteńo soul - is nowhere to be found in an hour of painful pedaling. So, forays into Piazzolla can be tales of avarice, hubris or aesthetic amnesia, like when opera singers sing pop. Parenthetically, the wrong-headedness of operati doing pop may have incited Aretha Franklin to sing Nessun Dorma - count it an act of revenge. Vinceró, vinceró, vinnnceeerrrooó will never be the blues. Nor will Kiri Te Kanawa ever coalesce her lush, articulated sowwwnnndzzz with Jerome Kern's simple melodies without beating them to death-uh. Tales like this happen to Piazzolla all the time, because it's in keeping with errant fantasies, like great comics wanting to play Hamlet. In terms of aesthetics and morals, Peter Soave has the soul, the fire, the passion, the gift and let me be perfectly clear, the absolute right to do Piazzolla. He rocks. he first cut, Adios Nonino, was composed by Piazzolla upon the occasion of his father's death. The music is always poignant. I've heard it played many times, including numerous versions by Piazzolla himself. Soave and the Rucner Quartet give it a plaintive performance - not quite the heartbreak I've heard, but nevertheless good. It has a meditative quality and I was glad to experience it with strings alone as opposed to the usual tango ensemble. That said, the Quartet seemed to dominate and the bandoneon was a little tentative. A good beginning, but it didn't blow me away. However, Adios Nonino is only a curtain raiser. The heart of this CD is all about Piazzolla's evocative tango suite, Five Tango Sensations. This performance of the work is stunning! The suite is comprised of five distinct moods: Asleep, Loving, Anxiety, Despertar (awakening, reviving) and Fear. This work was originally written for the Kronos Quartet and recorded with Piazzolla playing the bandoneon in 1990. I've owned and listened to the CD off and on for years. While the Kronos version is interesting and I was glad to have it, it always left me unmoved. It seemed cool, aloof, academic - as if Kronos was giving a fine reading, but nothing heartfelt. Okay, I began to think that was all the piece offered - an intriguing exercise, an ironic failure, a waste of big guns.
I hypothesized that Kronos' previous involvement with Piazzolla, Four for Tango, was successful and success had committed everyone to a sequel. Of course, by 1990 the Piazzolla phenomenon was heating up, so they would have had to have gotten together, added his bandoneon and done something. Whatever the reason, I always felt distanced and surprisingly unmoved by Piazzolla's playing.
Don't get me wrong, the performance is technically good, but somehow stiff, detached and cool to the point of making me think of his Doble A's Germanic origins rather than unbridled passion. Because of the lack of heat I developed a theory that his performance was dubbed - Kronos did its thing and sent the tapes to Astor who put on a headset and did his. True or not, the record has a disembodied effect - like Sinatra's Duets where the performers never met. Piazzolla was certainly an experienced performer/composer/movie scorer who worked under all kinds of circumstances, but he's always at his best in real time/live performances, either concerts or studio sessions where everyone is right there bouncing off each other. To my mind his best recording remains Tango Zero Hour with select live concert recordings a close second (he himself remarked on this). So, having addressed the ur-performance of Five Tango Sensations let me say that Peter Soave and the Rucner Quartet have delivered a definitive, heated and live rendering of the suite. Peter exceeds Piazzolla in feeling and passion. If you doubt, comparisons can be made by listening to the solo moments of Asleep and Despertar. A & B them and hear that while Piazzolla has precision in all the right places, his runs and staccati seem cold and abrupt. Soave's playing on the other hand is fluid, warm and filled with emotion. Maybe Piazzolla's concept was to intrude stops and tears in the fabric - but the effect is intellectual and off-putting, an unwanted entfremdung (alienation) effect analogous to Brecht's theorized but rarely believed concept of drama.
There is neither intentional nor unintentional alienation in Soave's playing or the Rucner Quartet's interplay. Each time I listen I feel involved in the various movements as if I was ingesting them in my soul. Furthermore, complex and ever changing stories unfold in my imagination. I can't help but believe Piazzolla wanted to create exactly this kind of transfiguring and riveting experience - the very qualities which the Soave/Rucner performance deliver. By itself the Rucner Quartet is more intense, passionate and unbridled than Kronos - which by contrast seems to be playing Handel. And while there is nothing wrong with their musicianship or Handel, it's a long, long way from George I to Piazzolla, as Weill might have had Lenya sing!
Apart from being a remarkable recording, this CD by Peter Soave is an auspicious beginning. A colpa, he has become a world-class bandoneon player without qualification; living proof that a choice of instruments is always less important than the talent and soul of an artist. The world's slowness in appreciating this profundity relative to free reed instruments always amazes those of us fortunate enough to understand.

The CD booklet notes are in Croatian and English.

Second CD with Peter Soave

Astor Piazzolla’s nuevo tango, which incorporates classical forms and jazz elements into the traditional tango, was so controversial at its advent that Piazzolla had his life threatened on numerous occasions and was even exiled from Argentina. The traditional tango, born out of the bordellos of Buenos Aires in the way that jazz began in New Orleans, had been haunted by its origins for decades. Piazzolla, with his innovative style and desire to legitimize the tango and bring it to a serious musical audience, changed the face of the music forever. Featuring recordings by the Rucner String Quartet & Peter Soave.

All pieces composed by Astor Piazzolla and arranged by Peter Soave with the Rucner String Quartet.
Contents: 
Asleep
Loving
Anxiety
Despertar
Fear
Adios Nonino
Decarissimo
Oblivion

   sound samples are in mp3 format

New CD with Peter Soave

We would like to present our new discographic project – double CD album „Undertango“: Petera Soave, bandoneon and Rucner String Quartet, with the music of Astor Piazzolla, published by Rocco & partner from Zagreba (www.roccoipartner.hr).  The album was first promoted in Varaždin at the multimedia center Kult on 15 December 2007. and then in Zagreb at Mimara Museum on  January 17, 2008.  

ABOUT THE NEW ALBUM  „UNDERTANGO²“ 

I was most fortunate to musically participate in these outstanding Zagreb recording sessions during June of 2006.  Peter and his Rucner Quartet colleagues have comprehensively addressed the musical depths, intensity and challenges inherent in Piazzolla's exemplary compositions.  Peter Soave is an artist of considerable musical gifts, graciously championing Piazzolla's music throughout his many global performances and master classes.

In particular, consider and enjoy, the intensely expressive Chiquilin de Bachin, the carefully-researched string effects employed in Undertango, the serene, reflective moments of Asleep from the Five Tango Sensations, Amelitango’s dramatic syncopated rhythms, Gardel’s charming El dia que me quieras, and Piazzolla’s haunting, film score theme Oblivion, …. beautifully performed by the Rucner String Quartet, enhanced by arranger David Van De Pitte’s unique re-harmonizations,… and  each artistically interpreted, and lovingly woven together, by virtuoso, Peter Soave!

Dennis J. Tini
Distinguished Professor of Music
Pianist & Conductor, Wayne State University, Detroit, USA