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ROBERT SIEGEL: Berta Rojas wants us to listen to Latin American music.(SOUNDBITE OF BERTA ROJAS SONG)
SIEGEL: Rojas is a classical guitarist, teacher, record label owner, competition organizer. She's recorded nearly a dozen albums of Latin American music for guitar, most of them on her own. Well, now she's taking on one of South America's best-known forms, tango. Berta Rojas's new recording is called "History Of Tango." That's a piece by the great Argentine composer and performer Astor Piazzolla. Rojas says she wanted to present the music in a different way, using guitar and string ensemble.(SOUNDBITE OF BERTA ROJAS SONG)
SIEGEL: Berta Rojas joins us from Asuncion in Paraguay. Berta Rojas, welcome to the program.
BERTA ROJAS: Thank you so much for having me, Robert.
SIEGEL: And first, why an album devoted to tango?
ROJAS: Well, you know, as varied as our accents are in Latin America, it's also our music.(SOUNDBITE OF BERTA ROJAS SONG)
ROJAS: It's so interesting and so rich that I wanted to do a musical trip through Americas. And it was just natural for me to embrace the tango. Tango also allows the guitar to sing with a lyricism that we know that the guitar can express so beautifully and also the passion that is so intrinsic to the genre of tango music.(SOUNDBITE OF BERTA ROJAS SONG)
SIEGEL: The first track on the album is called "Taquito Militar." Is that military? Is that what we're talking about?
ROJAS: Yeah,...