Linda Lee Thomas is Vancouver’s most eclectic pianist: a musician whose performances are infused with “subtlety, elegance and fire”. (Vancouver Sun) .
She is also affectionately known as 'La Reina del Tango' since her bold emergence into the world of Argentina’s music and dance.
Miss Thomas is currently Principal Pianist for the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and the CBC Radio Orchestra. For seventeen years (1975-1992) she was highly visible to Vancouver audiences as Artistic Director and prima performer of the Vancouver East Cultural Centre’s hugely successful chamber music series, Masterpiece Music. In 2ooo, Linda Lee was inducted into the B.C. Entertainment Hall of Fame for her outstanding contributions to the industry.
Since hearing Astor Piazzolla in 1988, Thomas has been passionately drawn to the music and dance of the Argentine Tango. In 1999, she made her first pilgrimage to Buenos Aires, where she spent the days researching the tango repertoire and the nights exploring the city’s tango clubs. That same year she teamed up with Argentine superstar bandoneonist and composer Daniel Binelli for the Music in the Morning Series. Their broadcast for CBC was “electrifying” and led to their first CD - “TANGO de Buenos Aires”, which was released in March, 2002 by CBC Records. Horacio Salgán, the great tango master of the piano and ‘personalidad emerita de la cultura Argentina’ recently wrote of Thomas, “una magnifica Pianista y una gran Artista”.
Personal thoughts continued
' That night, for the first time I heard the bandoneon... the hauntingly beautiful instrument that is the soul of the tango. That night, for thefirst time I heard Nuevo Tango - the music of Piazzolla that changed the tango of the past and brought it into the present. More angular, more angry, more current. This new style didn’t go down too well with the Argentines who prefer their old traditional tangos. But because of Piazzolla, tango old and new has now permeated the world. It is difficult to describe Piazzolla’s music - it has the discipline of classical music, the freedom of jazz and the sad bliss of tango all combined.
After Piazzolla’s death, the natural heir to the Nuevo Tango throne was Daniel Binelli. Daniel was a colleague of Astor, playing in his Sexteto for years. He is a formidable bandoneonist, composer, arranger and musicdirector of the most popular tango shows. Binelli has taken over where Piazzolla left off, taking the tango to new heights and directions.
To play with Daniel is for me the greatest of pleasures. A dream come true. He has taught me how to fly and has led me to new levels of freedom and passion.'