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College of Arts and Sciences Newsroom

Four to Tango

The traditional "two to tango" dictum is upended by Cuarteto Tanguero, a chamber quartet from Bloomington, Indiana. While there won't be any dancing on stage at the University of Dayton's Sears Recital Hall, there will be plenty of great tango music at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 7.

Cuarteto Tanguero’s chamber format — violin, piano, bass and bandoneón — allows the group to bring tango to a broad listenership, not just avid ballroom dancers. Now popular worldwide, tango emerged as a dance music in the late 19th century in an area along the natural border between Argentina and Uruguay.

The quartet’s beginnings trace back to a chance meeting in Argentina between violinist Daniel Stein and bandoneónist Ben Bogart. Their passion for tango led to collaborations in This is Tango Now with Tony Award winner Fernanda Gui and Guillermo Merlo, and the Concert:Nova and Cincinnati Opera production of Astor Piazzolla’s Maria de Buenos Aires. They established an ensemble in 2012, with the ambition of bringing tango to a wider audience. Today, Cuarteto Tanguero also includes bassist Matt McConahay and pianist Winnie Cheung.

Based on their extensive research, Cuarteto Tanguero presents a range of music influenced by such greats as Astor Piazzolla, Osvaldo Pugliese and Juan D’Arienzo. They have also presented tango workshops and masterclasses at the University of Illinois, Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music Summer String Academy, the University of Massachusetts and Brown University, among others. In 2014, they also started the Tanguero Workshop for musicians, which has been hosted at the Jacobs School of Music Summer Workshops for the past three years.

Cuarteto Tanguero is presented by the ArtsLIVE at the University of Dayton, a concert series dedicated to bringing a wide range of cultural programming to campus and community audiences.

 

- Eileen Carr, ArtsLIVE coordinator

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