ABOUT
"Silent movies in black and white with smoke drifting across couples embracing to the Tango - this is the scene that Ruth paints with her music."
Ruth Roshan tells a great story of her first encounter with live Argentinean Tango in Paris at the age of 23 – of what must have been an unimaginably powerful experience for a young classical mandolinist from Warrnambool. Fast forward to now, and with her many ensembles including Tango Noir and Chamber Noir, she has recorded four albums of melodic tango-inspired pieces and songs, toured the world, and gathered an exceptional group of musicians around her in the process. Roshan is a born storyteller with a compelling vision – to transport her listeners through moonlit scenes of waltzes on cobblestones and rain drenched embraces; sometimes with her own music, sometimes with arrangements of Piazzolla, Gade, and Cohen; irreverently cavorting across times and styles, genres and moods, ranging from cinematic classical to European Tango, from the French waltz to the habanera. She talks us through at every step, leading the way as we journey to the bittersweet heart of the 1930s European salon.
Ruth Roshan & Tango Noir have performed at many Australian Festivals and venues including MONA FOMA, the National Folk Festival, Bellingen Global Carnival, Fairbridge Folk Festival, Port Fairy Spring Music Festival, Peninsula Summer Music Festival, Cygnet Folk Festival, Brisbane Powerhouse, Byron Theatre, Ellington Jazz Club, Randwick Town Hall, Kulcha, Albany Harbourside Concert Series, Adelaide Fringe Festival, Brisbane Cabaret Festival and Buenos Aires on the Beach, White Nights, Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, Moomba, MEMO Music Hall, Macedon Music, Manningham Music, Stonnington Flavours Festival, Victorian Senior's Festival, Melba Hall, Geelong Grammar, The Boite, Melbourne Town Hall, Chapel Off Chapel and Melba Spiegeltent.
They are regular performers at the Paris Cat Jazz Club and Melbourne Recital Centre (Salon).
Ruth travelled to St Petersburg to perform her compositions with Russia’s Remolino Ensemble and Ruth has performed in Switzerland and England as well as touring Italy and Germany with Tango Noir.
"Like watching Marlene Dietrich ... its music that’s sort of underrepresented anywhere in the world. Ruth was just an engaging, storytelling front person. The audience loved it and the musicians were just so compatible.”
Billy Pinnell (on PBS FM)
REVIEW (Classic Melbourne)
Ruth Roshan: Salon Noir Friday 10 October 10pm
Ruth Roshan, Voice/Mandolin; Phil Carroll, Accordion; Rollin Zhao, Violin; Nils Hobiger, Cello; Philip Arkinstall, Clarinet; Stefan Cassomenos, Piano
Akin to the experience of a nightclub in old Berlin, a late night of provocative and hilarious song from the inimitable Ruth Roshan rounded out our Friday night, with great backing from the instrumentalists who really got into the mood. Carroll’s wonderfully spicy accordion and Roshan’s electric mandolin provided great interpolations and counter melodies. Roshan was a red rose among her black-clad fellow-musicians, and her versatility is astounding – as the program notes put it, “irreverently cavorting across times and styles … from classical to tango, from the waltz to the habanera”, she took us on a journey “to the bittersweet heart of the 1930s European salon”. But Roshan really won us over when she interspersed these with her experiences as an unconfident school student and young mandolinist-in-training from Warrnambool; the audience relished her local references in these songs and were often in stitches. Roshan may not have the vocal qualities of an opera singer, but what she has in delivery and expressive communication of her own lyrics aced the night in spades. The backing group were fantastic, capturing the changing moods with by turns onomatopoeic and dazzling effects: Carrroll’s “drunken” accordion in the Little French Waltz, Zhao scratching below the violin’s bridge in The Last Cherry, Hobiger strumming his cello like a guitar on his knee, Cassomenos playing tambourine with his right hand and piano with his left. Many of the songs (such as Cherry Song) dripped with nostalgia but flooded us with happiness. A night to remember.
Port Fairy Spring Music Festival 10-12 October 2025, FRIDAY
by Kristina Macrae
LISTEN
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Ruth Roshan & Tango Noir
Their self-titled debut album was released in August 2009, featuring fresh arrangements of classic pieces by Astor Piazzolla, contemporary tango adaptations of Leonard Cohen and Macy Gray, plus Ruth's own original compositions for the genre.
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Darling ... Keep it to Yourself
Their second all original album, "Darling ... Keep it to Yourself", uses the rhythms of the cabaret, the Tango, the Habanera, the Waltz, to infuse the album with an atmosphere of 1930s Berlin.
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Stories of Love and Regret
Their third, original album, "Stories of Love and Regret". Influenced by European tango and waltz, evoking the atmosphere of a 1930’s French Salon, this recording combines lush arrangements with Ruth’s bittersweet lyrics to create music which is both elegant and beautiful, new and nostalgic all at the same time. The album was CD of the week or equivalent on at least 7 radio stations, a finalist in the Music Victoria Awards. In 2021 a track was a finalist in Madeby (National composition and choreography competition) and, as such, has been distributed for use in the Royal Academy of Dance.
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Ruth Roshan & Chamber Noir
Ruth Roshan’s fourth original album, Suite Noir, transports listeners through moonlit scenes of waltzes on cobblestones and rain drenched embraces. It conveys the beauty and excitement of a live recording of world class musicians.
Suite Noir, features an expansion of her longstanding Tango inspired quintet to chamber orchestra size (Ruth Roshan & Chamber Noir). Recorded at the ABC’s Iwaki auditorium and with soloists including Amir Farid (piano), Ben Opie (oboe), Sarah Curro (violin), Philip Arkinstall (clarinet) and Phil Carroll (accordion).
The opening track “You Like It” was nominated for the Marvin Hamlisch international classical composition award (2023).
WATCH
HIRE
Hire Ruth Roshan & Tango Noir/Chamber Noir to perform at your venue