Craig Ogden on Tango at Tetbury, Dancing with Piazzolla and Latin Connections

Craig Ogden returns to the Tetbury Festival on 27th September, opening the 2025 event with the London Tango Quintet. I spoke with Craig about the contrast with his solo recital of last year, the variety of the programme, his forthcoming new album with the Aquarelle Guitar Quartet, and the breaking down of musical barriers. He even told me about the strings he uses.

You opened the Tetbury Music Festival playing the likes of Dowland last year, but when you open the 2025 event, the audience is going to hear something entirely different. What can they expect? 

There certainly wouldn't be a Tango Quintet concert that didn't include some Piazzolla in its programme, but having united originally through his music, we've extended our repertoire into the other amazing riches of tango, predominantly from the first half of the twentieth century. There were slightly earlier titans of tango in Argentina, whose names are less familiar, like Pugliese, Salgán, and the Italian, Feliciano Brunelli, and Piazzolla brought a broader range of style and influences to tango, which took it more onto the concert platform and a little away from its origins as a dance. The relationships between the earlier repertoire and Piazzolla are integral, and what you get is this stunning kaleidoscope of sound with the five different instruments, all of which occupy really individual roles. 

David Gordon, our pianist, is absurdly talented and has written a piece called Bebop Tango. His favourite bebop pianist is Bud Powell, his favourite traditional tango composer is Horacio Salgán, and this is an imaginary meeting between the two. It flips from a bebop style to a tango style, and at the end, those two styles are brought together. David is a phenomenal improviser, and we're always catching each other's eye because he does things that are brilliant and entertaining. 

The festival programmes range from Renaissance music to contemporary classical, but it's quite a wake-up call for the festival to open with Michelangelo 70.

That was written in homage to Piazzolla’s favourite nightclub, so it does kick things off with a bang, but I think the connection is that any of us could be involved in the festival in a completely classical context. You know, we're very much musicians in the tradition of the festival, and the bulk of our work is as busy classical musicians. The music is dynamic, complex and varied, and we chuck in some party pieces as well. David will be playing Arvo Part's Spiegel im Spiegel, Miloš [Milivojević] is playing an arrangement of Asturias by Albeniz, and we're doing the Marcello-Bach Oboe Concerto. From our perspective it's all complex, challenging music to play, and it requires a lot of communication and rehearsal. Regardless of style, it's music we love to play, and we love playing and spending time together. Music is one of those things that if you have a feel for it, anyone anywhere can play music of any style.

You released Dancing with Piazzolla, which includes a lot of this music, last year.

We're really proud of that disc; it's dynamic, zesty stuff. The Tango Quintet always remains a little bit freewheeling in the recording process, which means it does feel very close to what we do live.  

Going back to your classical roots, your earliest recordings were of music by British composers, including an album of Lennox and Michael Berkeley, which we have made available again as a Presto CD. 

My musical education was very broad. I played percussion as well as guitar, and whether it was Barrios, Tarraga, traditional repertoire or Tippett, the same principles of technique and interpretation were all at play. I was brought in to play the guitar in some very contemporary things as well, for instance Henze’s Chamber Opera El Cimarron. I was doing all that stuff long before the Classic FM phase from 2010 to 2017. People who know me through that will probably think I'm lightweight, but I love the breadth. I love learning new pieces, and I absolutely love chamber music, so the London Tango Quintet and the Aquarelle Guitar Quartet are constant joys.

The new Aquarelle Guitar Quartet album, Latin Connections is out next month. One of the things that strikes me is that the textures and timbral variety are more than you might expect.

I can't think of another same-instrument grouping that's common at all. We do use different tunings to expand the range of the group, notably downwards. There’s a broad range of sounds available, and even though we sit in the same pitch range, music that's cleverly arranged means you do get a top, a middle and a bottom.

This was my first recording project with the Aquarelles. They were all originally students of mine, and I introduced them to Chandos Records, so I've always been aware of what they've been doing. They're always looking to new angles, not trying to recreate what they've done successfully before. 

It even goes as far as the Beatles with Blackbird.

You'd think it’s probably another cheesy Beatles version, but Clarissa's arrangement is astonishingly original. It's familiar enough to comfortably identify the tune, but it takes those gorgeous harmonies, and invests it with Latin pace, energy, rhythmic detail and syncopation to create something really original. 

What would your message be to Presto customers who are like me and have relatively little knowledge of the classical guitar repertoire? 

I've always loved the guitar, but it's interesting meeting people for whom it feels peripheral, and I totally understand it. I urge people to do whatever they can to experience it in recordings, but preferably live as well. There’s a great breadth of repertoire, everything from South American to Bach, Dowland and contemporary. I've always found the sound world in the repertoire of the guitar utterly beguiling, and guitar recitals are quite intimate because it's a small instrument. You sit directly facing the audience, not side on like a piano, and I always talk to the audience about the music, about the guitar, and about techniques. It can be a highbrow instrument if you want it to, but at its best it's diverse, and with an interesting, varied programme that's well played and delivered with personality it touches people. 

You are Head of Guitar at the Royal Northern College of Music; how important to you is teaching?

On the one hand we're all constantly teaching ourselves and, particularly at college level, I'm sharing the product of my experience, and it goes both ways. I feed off the students and really strive to deliver what they need, and improving their playing and my own playing is equally rewarding. When you get students who exceed expectations, it's really exciting, and finding things that work for me also work for others is very satisfying. Teaching is part of a balanced life in music, and it's a huge privilege.

We sell a lot of guitars and accessories in our shop and online, and I'm sure our customers will be keen to know why you choose D'Addario strings.

Firstly, because they sponsor me, but for years before that I've found them to be the most consistent string that does everything I've needed it to do, and as their products have developed, with the range of tensions, materials and coatings that are available they've become more and more suitable and lively. I use their Titanium top E, carbon second and third, and XT-coated hard tension bass strings, and they just make my guitar sound great. The XT bass strings genuinely last much longer than standard bass strings. The endorsement opportunity was a no-brainer because I was already using their strings out of choice.