Adam Hoopengardner and Ciko Tanik have been teaching & performing in New York City, where they are based, and throughout the U.S. for over 10 years. They are equally respected for their teaching, performing, DJing and organizing tango events.

They have had the opportunity to study with teachers from all over the world, who come from very different ideologies, which has fostered their own approach and character of dance. Their dance has evolved by blending these outside influences with their own personal growth as a couple. Their style is defined by its sensuality, musicality & creative playfulness.

They emphasize the importance of a good technique with a comfortable, musical walk over complicated moves. Their goal as teachers is to bring their students’ personality out in their dance by teaching them the music and the concept of countless possibilities the dance offers. They cannot over-emphasize the value of active followers which makes the dance much more interactive and fun. When teaching they are able to transmit their mastery of the complex concepts of tango while retaining their innate humor and humility.

Sunday, July 19 Ciko & Adam together will teach our 11:30 am “Tango Technique for Individuals” class. The theme is Technique to Enhance Your Musicality.

Dancers, choreographers, and masters of Argentine Tango, Adrian Veredice and Alejandra Hobert have been a professional couple since 1998. They rapidly became one of the most recognized tango couples of our time. Their impressive performances with unparalleled expressiveness are received with enthusiasm in theaters and on stages worldwide. They have headlined many of the most acclaimed tango festivals worldwide over the past 15 years, in cities including Berlin, Rome, London, Paris, Lisbon, Athens, Istanbul, Dubai, Montreal, New York, Dallas, Boulder, Miami, Catania, and Nice, among others.

As teachers, Adrian and Alejandra are known for their immense professionalism, richness of technical detail, and impeccable methodology. They are super representatives of the new generation of tango dancers.

Their performance at our 2017 festival was covered by the New York Times.

Micaela and Alberto are the founders of the Cleveland Tango School. Based out of New York and the Caribbean before moving to Cleveland, Alberto and Micaela have taught at the Hunter College Tango Club, Oberlin University, New York’s You Should Be Dancing studios and the Piel Canela Dance Company. They have also done a number of collaborative projects with the modern dance company “The Movement Project”.

They have taught and performed at the Toronto Tango Experience, Pittsburgh Tango Week, Windy City Tango Festival, Detroit’s Mini-Tango Fest among others. In Puerto Rico they taught alongside the teachers and performers of Y Entonces … Tango.

Alberto has volunteered and trained at the Mark Morris Dance Company in Brooklyn. While Micaela’s tango is also strongly influenced by her work with T’ai Chi, Feldenkreis, Yoga, and a variety of artistic practices.

Their dance is known for its musicality and playfulness, while their teaching explores the history and traditions of tango. Micaela and Alberto dedicate themselves to helping students create more comfortable, interesting, and grounded tandas throughout the night.

Andrei is a Nonviolent Communication trainer, whose work facilitates building practical skills and shifts in awareness supporting healthy, empowered relationships with others and with oneself. He works with individuals, couples, families and organizations with focus on embodiment and simplicity.

Andrei has taught in the U.S. and Europe, in workshops, families, and one-on-one. He has been training and practicing NVC since 2007 and is certified as a Nonviolent Parenting Educator.

Born and raised in Buenos Aires, Andres Amarilla began dancing tango in 1987 at age 11. While still a child, he studied with and performed in the dance companies of three of the greatest tangueros of all time: Gustavo Naveira, Juan Carlos Copes, and Rodolfo Dinzel. After 10 years of intensive immersion in the music, culture and movement of traditional Argentine Tango, Andres became part of a small group of young people seeking to push the limits of the traditional art form. Together, they analyzed and codified the movements, sequences and rules of traditional tango and began to play with the “grammar” of the tango language, thereby developing uncounted new sequences of movements, and giving birth to a new means of teaching, dancing and thinking about tango. This way of analyzing tango has become the basis of most good tango pedagogy in the world today.

A greatly sought-after teacher, Andres has taught in more than 70 cities worldwide, including Istanbul, Beirut, Warsaw, Gdansk, Moscow, Sydney, Brisbane, Belo Horizonte, Buenos Aires, San Francisco, Vancouver, Montreal, and New York, among many others. In 2008, Andres and his dance partner, Meredith Klein, founded the Philadelphia Argentine Tango School. Until Covid-19, Andres split his year between Philadelphia and traveling to teach in other parts of the world. Now, he has taken on an important new role as full-time steward of Sheldon the Tango Cat. Meow!

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Andrés and Natacha met five years ago in Buenos Aires milongas. She is from Paris. He is from Buenos Aires. Early in 2015, they decided to work together, based in Paris, to develop and share a renewed vision for tango.

They look for an organic and cheerful dance, focusing on sensations and musicality, yet keeping present the essence of tango, sparing superficialities and clichés. Dancing they focus on active listening and mutual inspiration. Their quality of movement is a combination of smoothness and power, grounding and presence, creativity and expression.

Their way of teaching is based on precise internal body technique, which allows comfort and fluidity individually and as a couple, as well as communication and improvisation. Socially open and fun, their classes are both challenging and playful and bring practical tools to improve and develop the dance.

Carla Marano belongs to a generation of dancers that helped transform tango from a popular dance form with virtually no pedagogy, into a highly-sophisticated, deeply-understood art form. This was accomplished through many years of penetrating investigation into its movement technique, technical language and musical interpretation. Carla was an essential part of this investigative process, which has fueled the evolution of the dance, and its explosive popularity worldwide. Carla has given courses in different academic institutions, organizations and special events in Buenos Aires, such as La Viruta, CITA, and Festivals of the City Government of Buenos Aires, among others. Since 2013 she has run the popular investigation space ‘La Propuesta’ with Octavio Fernandez in La Viruta and El Juvenil. Starting in 2019, she resides in New York City, while continuing to teach in Buenos Aires, and throughout the US and Europe.

Octavio Fernandez’s passion for tango started when he was a teenager, inside a family atmosphere where Tango, Folklore and Rock 'n Roll were an everyday occurrence. Rodolfo Dinzel and Mauricio Seifert guided his first years of Tango. In 2007, with his partner Carla Espinoza, Octavio achieved 3rd place at the "World Tango Salon Championship". As a teacher and dancer he has been asked to participate in tango festivals around the world. He has participated at the shooting of the Argentinian film, “Fermin, Glorias de Tango” and at musical video clip, of the italian rock band Tre Allegri Ragazzi Morti, for his song "La faccia della Luna". His passion and interest for Tango music, led him to be one of the most recognised Djs of the moment.

Elegant, but full of freshness, his dance was created thanks to hours and hours of dancing in the milongas porteñas. The influence of great contemporary tango masters and dancers, as well as the essence of the old “Milongueros” are embodied in every step he takes on a dance floor.

Carolyn Merritt began practicing yoga in 2002 and she completed a 200-hour CYT training with Amrita Yoga & Wellness. Carolyn holds a Ph.D. in anthropology and a B.A. in French and Spanish, and she has a background in ballet, modern dance, and Argentine tango. She is the author of Tango Nuevo (University Press of Florida, 2012), and she writes about dance and performance in Philadelphia for http://thINKingDANCE.net.

A native of California, Christine began her musical journey with the piano at age 5 and the violin at age 8, and was recruited as her church organist at 12. She studied at the University of Northern Iowa and has performed in Philharmonic orchestras in California, Iowa, Missouri and Nevada. Her interest in argentine tango began in 1999 when she and Beau Bledsoe formed Tango Lorca in Kansas City, Missouri. She moved to Buenos Aires in 2002 to participate in the 3rd annual formation of the Emilio Balcarce Tango Orchestra School where she learned the finer nuances of this art alongside living masters such as Julian Plaza, Victor Lavallen, Sexteto Mayor, Pepe Motta, among many others. She has toured Japan, China, and Europe and the US with Tango X 2, Roberto Herrera, Tango Dreams, Tango Fire, & Tango Lovers.

Christine was the soloist in the Orquesta Tipica Sans Souci for many years, as well as in Buenos Aires tango nightclubs MaderoTango and La Esquina de Homero Manzi. She is sought after for her versatile tango style, exploring new tango alongside their composers such as Ramiro Gallo, Diego Schissi and Juan Pablo Navarro.

Since 2002, Buenos Aires has been her home. She enjoys teaching tango to musicians and performing. For a look into her life in Buenos Aires, please watch this video (with english subtitles) made for public television in Argentina called Tango y La Ciudad (Tango and The City): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwtWlOS3Xkk

Grieco- Ragusa Duet: Nili Grieco in Flute and Leandro Ragusa in Bandoneon, was formed in 2016 by an independent initiative with the aim of giving a new vision to the interpretation of Tango and Argentine Music. the repertoire is made up of works by Piazzolla, own compositions by Leandro Ragusa and traditional music by representative composers of tango.

Since its inception, the duo has been dedicated to teaching and disseminating new musical creations. He has made the first world version for flute and bandoneon of Piazzolla’s Historia del Tango, premiered in venues in Buenos Aires, New York, Boston and Montreal. https://quintetodeacademia.wixsite.com/flauta-y-bandoneon

They were touring Argentina (Salta - Jujuy Provinces), USA and Canada in May-june / October-November 2018, giving workshops and masterclasses of Tango for Woodwinds and Appreciation and History of Tango and performing their own music in several Festivals in NY, Boston and Montreal. In August 2019, the Duo was invited to perform at Montreal International Tango Festival.

The Grieco-Ragusa Duo has been declared of cultural interest by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worship, Culture Section. Both are members of the Quinteto de Academia, a new sound concept for tango, music for Woodwinds (flute, oboe, clarinet, bass clarinet) and Bandoneon. http://quintetodeacademia.wixsite.com/quintetodeacademia

Nili Grieco is flutist and Traverse Flute Professor at Manuel de Falla Music Conservatory and GCBA Music Schools. Leandro Ragusa is a bandoneonist, composer and arranger, he was a professor of History of Tango at the Tango Studies Center of Buenos Aires (CETBA).

Erin Malley and Doruk Golcu are an internationally touring teaching couple. Based in west Michigan, their teaching prioritizes partnership, making the dance work as a collaborative team. They have taught and performed throughout the US, Europe and in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Sunday, July 12: Erin will teach our 11:30 am “Tango Technique for Individuals” class. The class will use choreography to explore musicality and to help you stay tango-fit. Also, it’s going to be tons of fun!

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and based in NYC, pianist/composer Emiliano Messiez has become one of the most in-demand tango pianists in the world. He has played some of the most notable music venues in the United States, including Lincoln Center, and performed with some of the world’s top musicians, such as Paquito de Rivera, Dino Saluzzi, and Concha Buika. With Jose Luis Infantino, he recorded the album, “Silencio,” in 2004, which received an UNESCO Prize for music.

With a versatile and unique style, Emiliano performs in a wide range of genres from classical music and jazz, to rock and Latin American rhythms. In the worldwide tango community, Emiliano has become known as one of the most brilliant tango pianists of our time. His playing is absolutely infectious and highly danceable. Whether Emiliano is performing as a soloist, in small group formations (duo / trio / quartet), or directing his entire orchestra, the Tipica Messiez, you can’t sit down when Emiliano is playing.

Emiliano graduated from the National University of the Arts in Buenos Aires. He later joined the faculty there, teaching in the Department of Composition. He also graduated from Berklee College of Music’s Escuela de Music Contemporánea in Buenos Aires.

Emiliano is the pianist for the hit show, “Forever Tango,” which has been seen by over eight million people worlwide, including on Broadway and the West End in London. He performs “Tango Dueling Pianos,” a unique concept featuring two tango pianists, with Latin-Grammy nominee Pablo Estigarribia.

In 2020, Emiliano released a new CD with the Underground Tango Ensemble, “El Charrúa,” a tribute dedicated to his friend, Latin Grammy winner bandoneonist Raúl Jaurena.

A prolific composer, Emiliano wrote the music for “The Guava Tree” and “Bordello”, an in-development musical based in 1920’s Buenos Aires. He is currently at work on a new musical for Creede Repertory Theater in Colorado.

For more information, please visit www.emilianomessiez.com.

Flor Argento is a professional dancer and tango teacher, curator and producer born in Buenos Aires in 1976. She studied History at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA). Director of Besos Brujos Tango School and teacher at Milonga Parakultural Salon Canning. She was part of the prestigious Ballet Escuela Aceta of Argentina’s Ministry of Culture in 2005. She has performed and participated in shows in the main milongas of Buenos Aires and Europe together with great dancers of the golden age of tango like Tete Rusconi, Toto Faraldo and Flaco Dany, as well as with other dancers of her generation, including Jorge Lladó, Hernan Alvarez Prieto and Javier Maldonado.

She is currently devoting herself to her two passions: dancing—shows and performances—and teaching in the most renowned schools and milongas of Buenos Aires and the European circuit. In 2018 she and Ignacio Vázquez inaugurated Last Tanda, an interactive exhibition of living heritage about the emblematic dancers of the golden age of tango (1940s and 1950s). In May/July 2020 she will go on her 19th tour in Europe (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Slovenia, and Spain).

Gustavo was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in the sixties. As a kid, he used to listen to tango tunes and watch the only tango TV show on air on those days with his father. As he grew up, it was not Gustavo but his sister who started dancing tango professionally. While not rejecting being in touch with that music, he preferred to carry on with rock music as the lead singer in different bands from 1983 to 2006. At the same time, Gustavo became an Engineer and, later, Economics and Math Teacher at school and college.

One day, in 2003, he began taking tango dance classes and he never stopped. Helped by his background plus his relationship with music in general, he fast learned the fundamentals of the dance. The list of teachers whom he took lessons from, many times for long periods, is endless. Nevertheless, among them we can find Gabriela Elías (director and choreographer with M. Mores, L. Lamarque, J. Colángelo, and others), Horacio Godoy (La Viruta Tango Club), Elina Ruiz, Carlos Copello, Fabián Peralta, Natacha Poberaj, Carlos Pérez. From 2007, Cecilia García, Mariela Sametband, Moira Castellano, Alejandro Larenas, Marisol Morales. And last but not least, Mariano Chicho Frúmboli y Juana Sepúlveda (from 2007).

Quite possibly he is one of the few survivors who make a living doing something else, but achieve master commitment to the art of dancing tango for the love of spreading the word of a culture which continues captivating people all over the world. He has been sharing his passion for tango in many circumstances, teaching and dancing.

Inés Muzzopappa is an Argentine Tango dancer and instructor. She started her path in tango when she was 14 years. In 2007 she won the 1st Prize in the World Tango Championship.

From that moment on she started to teach and perform at the most renowned Tango Festivals and events in Argentina, Europe, Asia and the US. She also has participated as a judge in different international contests for tango.

During these years, Inés has also been studying social pedagogy and English and Italian languages in order to improve her teaching skills and to organize conferences merging tango and pedagogy.

Ines is a riveting performer and brilliant teacher who has visited Philadelphia several times before, most recently at the 2022 Philadelphia Tango Festival. We are very lucky to be able to welcome Ines to Philadelphia twice in one year!

Jennifer S. Hirsch, Associate Professor of Sociomedical Sciences in the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, is the author of A Courtship after Marriage: Sexuality and Love in Mexican Transnational Families and co-editor of two recent volumes on the comparative anthropology of love. She is the co-author of the recently released book, Sexual Citizens: A Landmark Study of Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus. Her appearance at the Virtual Tango Festival is part of a virtual book tour for this acclaimed new work.

Korey Ireland is a composer, bandoneonist, and tango dancer, living in Berlin, Germany. His passion for tango music and dance led him to form the first Community Tango Orchestra in Washington DC in 2009. In 2010 Korey moved to Berlin where he started the Berlin Community Tango Orchestra which performs regularly at milongas in Berlin and at tango festivals and special events around Germany. Korey has led tango orchestras at festivals in Buenos Aires, Boston, Washington DC, Los Angeles, Portland, Ashland, Devon, Moscow, Vancouver, Utrecht, Staufen, Proitzer Mühle, among others. In addition to arrangements for orquesta tipica, Korey also creates custom arrangements or adaptations for other instrumentation.

Kristin Balmer has been dancing tango for 22 years, and teaching for 15 years. She started dancing in Philadelphia with Lesley Mitchell and Kelly Ray, and soon began taking yearly trips to Buenos Aires, where she studied with many teachers, including Ernesto Balmaceda, Graciela Gonzalez, and Luciana Valle. She learned how to teach tango from Daniel Trenner, one of the first tango teachers in the U.S. (and the person who was instrumental in bringing Argentine Tango to this country).

Kristin is also an accomplished painter, bookbinder and printmaker, and graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

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Since its 2012 debut in Buenos Aires, La Juan D’Arienzo has offered listeners and dancers the characteristic music in the style of the legendary tango orchestra leader Juan D’Arienzo, who was known as the Rey del Compás, or the King of the Rhythm. The young and talented musicians not only offer that mode of one of the greatest orchestras inArgentine tango history, they also bring a freshness that has been welcomed by audiences around the world.

The orchestra consists of 10 musicians: Pablo Valle on piano; Andres Santarciero on double bass; Juan Pablo Cravenna, Pablo Ginzburg, and Emilio Pagano on violins; Pablo Amado, Ricardo Badaracco, Facundo Lazzari, and Oscar Yemha on bandoneóns; and Fernando Rodas, a talented singer. The orchestra is directed by the first bandoneónist, Lazzari, whose grandfather was Carlos Lazzari, the first bandoneónist and arranger for the original Juan D’Arienzo Orchestra from 1950 until 1976, when D’Arienzo passed away, and then the leader of Los Solistas de D’Arienzo. The orchestras is often accompanied by an incredible singer, Fernando Rodas.

They have completed many tours around Europe, Asia, and more recently, the U.S. La Juan D’Arienzo won “best tango orchestra in the world” in 2018!

For more information, and to purchase music, please check out their website.

Leandro Benmergui is chair of Latin American Studios at SUNY Purchase. After completing a BA at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, Leandro moved to the U.S. to complete a PhD at the University of Maryland. His work focuses on the social and cultural history of urban renewal and housing programs in Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro. Leandro is in the process of being converted into a tango dancer.

Leandro Ragusa studied bandoneón with the Mtros. Néstor Marconi, Carlos Lazzari and Juan Carlos Caviello and composition & arrangements with Mtros. Gabriel Senanes, Laura Baade, Manolo Juarez an Diego Taranto. Leandro was awarded a scholarship by the Konex Foundation and completed the First Higher Diploma in Tango, graduating in 2004. He teaches in Tango history at the University of Tango in Buenos Aires. He is a co-founder of Centro’feca (Forum of Argentine Cultural Studies), an NGO dedicated to the research and dissemination of Tango.

Leandro has been part of various tango orchestras: Juan D’arienzo Orchestra, Rodolfo Mederos Orquesta, Orchestra Escuela de Tango. As a soloist he participated in the Tango show of the Huis Ten Bosh Center (Nagasaki-Japan), National Radio Youth Orchestra, the Orcheste Symphonique de Longueuil (Montreal - Canada) and the Symphony Orchestra of the Municipality of San Martín (Buenos Aires). Since 2016, he has made arrangements for different ensembles in the Argentina and abroad.

He currently performs as a bandoneonist, composer and arranger of ‘Quinteto de Academia’, music for woodwinds and bandoneon, with which he has performed in New York, Boston and Montreal, as well as in Buenos Aires. In September 2019, WRTI Philadelphia filmed this beautiful concert/profile of Leandro Ragusa and Emiliano Messiez.

Born in Lincoln, Buenos Aires, Marina discovered tango at age 18 in the city of Rosario. Since then, she has studied with the most recognized tango teachers of the country. She also studied modern dance, ballet and contact improvisation, and has been part in several investigation groups in body work. Marina is also a degreed Music Therapist and professional yoga teacher.

Since she moved to Buenos Aires in 2007, Marina has taught regular lessons of tango and perform in recognized studios and milongas of the city, including Viva la Pepa Milonga, Practica X, Tango Brujo, Salón Canning, El Esquinazo and Milonga 10, among others. She has worked as a dancer and teacher in diferent countries like United States, Canada, México, Poland and China, where she has also participated in renowned festivals.

As a performer she stands out for her refined technique, precision and expressiveness. Her knowledge of other artistic disciplines gives her a very personal style in the dancing. Respecting the traditional tango essence, she also incorporates the most contemporary elements of this dance.

Matias Facio first began dancing tango in Patagonia, Argentina, in 1995 and from that time has completely immersed himself in it. His passion for dancing and studying tango took him to Buenos Aires where he fully developed his own unique style, his dance. His mind and body awareness have been enriched through styles such as Graham, Limon, Cunningham, Flying Low and Feldenkrais. Matias has been teaching tango for more than 15 years, and traveling around the globe teaching and performing has given him a wealth of tango experiences.

For the past 12 years, Matias has been living in Berlin, teaching tango at the school he co-founded Tango Libre, and traveling to teach and perform throughout the world. He is renowned for his ability to improvise in performance with any dancer.

Meredith Klein has been dancing tango for 22 years, including three years spent living in Buenos Aires. For the past 13 years, she has run the Philadelphia Argentine Tango School. Over the past three years, the school has become one of the most prolific presenters of live tango music in the United States.

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Mitra Martin has been exploring Argentine Tango continuously since encountering it in Buenos Aires in 1998. Her first Tango home was the Triangulo community in New York City directed by Carina Moeller which has influenced her work as a community organizer. She has also been influenced by Daniel Trenner’s articulation of the relationship between roles in tango; Brigitta Winkler’s approach to creating intentional learning experiences; Rodolfo Dinzel’s approach to creating learning communities; and Gustavo Naveira’s work on the structure of tango — but her most important learning has come from partnerships forged on the social dance floor, and interactions with learners.

In 2008 she co-founded Oxygen Tango in Los Angeles with Stefan Fabry and directed the school for nine years, facilitating thousands of hours of tango experiences for her community. Mitra co-created the Tango Challenge with Stefan Fabry in 2011, has facilitated twenty cohorts, and directed its expansion to new communities and facilitators. During this period Mitra also organized the Oxygen Milonga benefit which planted over 12,000 trees, published the Tango Manual video-based peer-learning beginner curriculum, and taught and DJ’d at festivals and marathons all around the country. Mitra is an accomplished leader, follower, DJ, and organizer, and has nurtured a generation of Los Angeles-based dancers and DJs. She is a professional User Experience Researcher and a graduate of Princeton University with honors.

A lifetime resident of Buenos Aires, Monica Moya is an Iyengar Yoga Senior Teacher and runs a very successful yoga studio in Buenos Aires. She’s also a tango dancer with over 20 years experience. She travels to Philadelphia each year to help Meredith run the Philly Tango Festival, and also collaborates to run the yearly Tango Tour to Buenos Aires. She’s also one of the warmest, smartest and funniest people you could hope to meet.

A native-born New Yorker, Oliver Kolker grew up in Argentina from the age of 3. He started dancing tango in 1997 and has enjoyed success in many different areas of tango. Oliver has taught & performed worldwide, becoming famous in particular for his infectious and fantastic performances of milonga. He served as Executive Director of Mora Godoy’s tango school and created the “Tango Emocion” company and show with her. He has placed highly in both salon and stage categories of the World Tango Championship. In 2014, Oliver achieved a long-worked-for dream when he wrote, directed and acted in the acclaimed movie FERMIN, Glories of Tango , which was presented in more than 10 festivals around the world. (It is a beautiful movie!) Oliver continues to split his time between the acting/film world and the tango teaching/dancing world.

Pablo Estigarribia is a renowned Argentine Tango pianist, arranger and composer. He has been awarded the “Premio Gardel” for his solo album in 2015, and has been nominated for his record with Tango legend Maria Graña in 2017. He also recorded with Leopoldo Federico, Horacio Cabarcos and Nestor Marconi among many others. He is the protege of former Osvaldo Pugliese arranger and bandoneonist Victor Lavallen. In his many years as a performer he has played in the most important venues including the Kennedy Center, the Blue Note (NYC), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Teatro Colón, the California Jazz Conservatory, The Nakano Sun Plaza (Tokyo), and many others.

Learn more about Pablo at www.pabloestigarribia.com

Raul Jaurena, master of the bandoneon, was one of the most prominent bandoneon players of his time. His music played a very personal tribute to the influences of his native South America and his adopted hometown of New York. It combined the traditional roots of tango, as well as the tango of today.

The bandoneon influenced Jaurena’s life right from the cradle. He was raised in Uruguay and his father taught him how to play the instrument; at the age of eight he had already joined a tango orchestra. The fascination for this highly emotional music grabbed him and never let go. As a member of various renowned tango-ensembles in the 1960s and 1970s in Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador and Venezuela, Raul Jaurena lay the tracks for his career. In the beginning of his career he accompanied well-known tango singers Roberto Goyeneche and Edmundo Rivero and played with pianist Cesar Zagnoli and his quintet.

A performance together with Astor Piazzolla at the Montreal Jazz Festival inspired his musical development. The conservation of the musical spirit of Astor Piazzolla became his personal vocation. Jaurena’s tango interpretations are enriched by influences of jazz, his own arrangements and spontaneous improvisations. They fascinated a new generation of listeners and dancers. In 1990, he founded the New York Buenos Aires Connection ensemble and the New York Tango Trio with Pablo Aslan and Ethan Iverson.

His arrangements and his skills as a composer and a solo player made him equally popular both in the USA and in Europe. The ballet suite he composed in 1995 for the Irene Hultman Dance Company debuted in New York and was shortly after awarded the “Bessie”. During the same year he was invited to the White House and received a Grammy nomination for his CD Tango Bar. In 2007, he won a LATIN GRAMMY for best Tango Album for “Te amo Tango,” and received an ACE Award (Asocacion de cronistas de espectaculos de la ciudad de New York) for his professional trajectory. Over the years he took charge of the musical direction of many stage projects including his participation as arranger, composer and bandoneon player at the Thalia Spanish Theatre in New York. He played with Cuban Jazz saxophone player Paquito D’Rivera, as well as Yo Yo Ma, Giora Feidman, Tango Five and others.

As a soloist, he played Klezmer and Tango Music with prominent ensembles and orchestras throughout Europe. He performed at universities and schools in Hannover, Halle Kassel, Hamburg, Lubeck, Munter, Lingen, Landshut, Muhigorf, Heidelberg, Bonn, Kiel, Celle, Wurzburg, and Bremen. He toured regularly with Tango Five and singer Marga Mitchell and presented the program Amando a Buenos Aires at the Fiedrichsbau Theatre in Stuttgart, Germany with these artists. Jaurena performed with Tango Five with the Sudwestdeutsche Philharmonie Konstanz, and gave a series of concerts with Giora Feidman in Boblingen, Balingen, Russelsheim Theatre, Wurzburg, Ludwigsburg, Bonn, Tuttlinge, Stadthalle, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Switzerland and Germany,

Highlight performances in the US include his participation in recognition of Pope Francis’s visit in Washington D.C along with the National Youth Orchestra of Uruguay. In New York City, Jaurena played at Merkin Concert Hall along with Russian violinist Nina Bellina, The North/South Chamber Orchestra with Conductor Max Lifchitz, the Little Orchestra Society at Lincoln Center along with conductor Dino Anagnost and at the Thalia Spanish Theatre. Jaurena also performed with the Orchestra Concertante of Chicago conducted by Hilel Kagan and performed a series of concerts with the Pan American Symphony Orquestra including the Opera Maria of Buenos Aires. He was invited as a special guest to the International Accordeon Festival in San Antonio, Texas and his show Tango & Tango had great success at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago. Other performances include; The Cleveland Museum of Art World Music and Dance Series and the show Let’s Tango at East Carolina University.

International performances include the Centenary of La Cumparsita, with the Sodre Symphony Orchestra with Conductor Martin Garcia in Montevideo, Uruguay presenting Jaurena’s original symphonic arrangements honoring the famous creation of Gerardo Matos Rodríguez. He traveled to Israel to teach and perform for 18 years in a row at the Jerusalem International Klezmer Festival and also performed with the Israel Kibbutz Orchestra. Other performances include his participation at the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival In Finland and his partnership with clarinetist Bernd Ruf in the “Jaurena Ruf Project” tango chamber music in Germany.

As the result of a continual search for new experiences, Jaurena’s music turned into something truly unique. It reflected the influences of different cultures as well as one hundred years of tango history. Raul Jaurena - the man that Astor Piazolla once called one of the greatest bandoneon players ever - enjoyed a truly a unique connection to his instrument. Genuine, open, touching, with stunning technical brilliance, his playing enriched and added an important facet to modern tango interpretation.

Tomas Regolo is the founder, pianist and director of the award-winning orchestra, Romantica Milonguera. One of the most danceable and sexiest of the new tango orchestras, Romantica Milonguera has taken the world by storm with its charismatic sound and look, and the use of both male and female singers. The orchestra won “Best Tango Orchestra” worldwide in 2019.

We were delighted to present Romantica Milonguera during its first U.S. tour in September 2019, and cannot wait to have them back, after all of this is over.

Veronika has been practicing yoga since 2011 and holds a 200-RYT teacher certification as well as an additional 20-hr Yoga Anatomy certification from Yoga Medicine, and 20-hr yin yoga teacher certification. Veronika teaches mostly vinyasa flow and yin styles of yoga, offering a variety of options for practitioners of all levels to modify their practice according to their needs. Additionally, Veronika has been dancing tango since 2005 and teaching tango since 2009. To learn more about Veronika, please visit www.verokrutayoga.com.