One of the great pleasures of writing the posts on this site is that I’m sometimes able to get in touch with living composers and badger them with nosy questions. I was extremely curious about this set of songs because they all have Spanish texts, and yet Sid Robinovitch is Canadian, has a Jewish background, and wrote the pieces as a commission for the Association of Canadian Choral Conductors. There didn’t seem to be much of a Latin tango connection in any of this. So originally I professed my mystification and moved on, but later it occurred to me that I could just ask. I e-mailed Robinovitch after looking up his contact info on his website, and here is part of his very gracious and prompt reply: