This year we started our 2018 California route with a milonga in Sacramento for Tango on Broadway. We continued with a concert in San Francisco and then we played for a milonga in Ventura hosted by our friends Stephen and Deb who curate Quantum Tango, a group we’ve worked with five times now. We then made…
We just returned from the first ever all live music tango festival in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was organized by our friends Erskine Maytorena (bandoneón) and Olga Tikhovidova (violin). They invited seven different U.S. groups to play as well as other guests from around the world to fill out a Grand Orchestra. Andrew and I…
When we tour we play two different kind of gigs–we play for concerts and we play for tango dances called milongas. The milongas on the Dreaming to Live Tour represented 9 out or 27 performances in 7 states. The great thing about playing a dance is people listening to your music and putting it into motion…
Carmen and I have been playing arrangements of Astor Piazzolla ever since we met in September of 2002. We have played many different pieces by Piazzolla but recently we decided that it was time for some new Piazzolla arrangements. Escualo The first piece that I decided to arrange, Escualo, was originally written as a violin…
There was an extra special performance for Folias on our 2016 summer tour. We were invited to play a set of music at the Burning Tango festival in Northern California. The festival takes place in the small town of McCloud at the base of Mount Shasta. Dancers from all over the country get together for…
Every summer we set off to spend our lives on the road playing concerts and milongas. Each year we add a few pieces to our summer repertoire and I thought that it would be nice to document what we played this year. This year we did not only have one concert worth of songs but…
This May Andrew and I had the opportunity to play for two lovely milongas in central Chile, one in Valparaiso and one in Santiago. Valparaiso is an a amazing city with spectacular views of the coast, a hopping nightlife and great food, including seafood. The bar we played at La Piedra Feliz was really cool…
In January we had the privilege to be featured on the Chamber Music at the Scarab Club concert series with the premier of our arrangement of Astor Piazzolla’s Angel Suite for flute, guitar and string quartet. It was a great opportunity for us to work on our arranging skills and to play with great string players from…
Last month we had the privilege to give a concert and a lecture on how we have made successful careers as DIY musicians at the Wayne State University Music Department. Over the years we have done many things as a duo, from playing tango music for milongas, to playing concerts. Also making CD’s, and booking international and national tours.…
We had a great time playing a Planet Tango Portland event during a milonga at Alex Kreb’s studio Tango Berretín. It was part of a 24 hour broadcast of live tango in cities around the world: Melbourne, Tokyo, Taipei, Moscow, Istanbul, Prague, Montevideo, Minneapolis, and Buffalo. Alex wasn’t there, but we did get to dance in Portland to his…
For the first full week of the Viewpoints Tour – West we spent five nights in New Mexico playing four gigs. We had the opportunity to play for milongas in Las Cruces, Santa Fe, and Albuquerque. The New Mexico tango community was supportive of live tango music all around. It was so great to play…
We had a sucessful start to the Viewoints West tour with enthusiastic milongas, great company, and delicious food in Champaign and Austin. Thanks to Sahand for getting up at 6am in the morning to make us buttermilk pancakes from scratch and the Denis and Denna for cooking us their gourmet food made with love and…
Wow! What a great way to spend Carmen’s birthday weekend. Thanks to all the organizers and to the dancers who came out for our workshops and for live music at the milongas. We can’t wait to be back dancing and playing for Madison and Milwaukee tango.
Here is a golden era tango arrangement I did of Pedro Laurenz’s version of Quejas de bandoneón. The more well known to the tango world is the Anibal Troilo version which have performed a lot. However, with this one I am really excited to bring to you the fills, transitions, counterlines and a different variación that Laurenz…
Here is a video of one of our favorite Argentine songs, Alfonsina y el mar. We created this arrangement for a lovely gig in Marion, Iowa at the Campbell Steele Gallery. Folias – Alfonsina y El Mar from Carmen Maret on Vimeo.
Thanks to Pat for grabbing this video for our first time playing at Blackrocks Brewery in Marquette, MI.
We always love playing in Ann Arbor! Thanks to all the MTango folks, Dennis, Lisa, Avik, and to Silvio for the fantastic food!
For the Christmas holiday we traveled out west and played for two different milongas. In preparation for the dances, we decided that we needed to do some new transcribing of some sweet classic licks (D’Agostino, D’Arienzo, Canaro, Troilo) from the golden era tangos. We also decided that it was time to learn not only one…
Oblivion from Carmen Maret on Vimeo. This video is from the Piazzolla Tango Relay organized by Jorge Broggio in the Detroit/Ann Arbor area. At the milonga, dancers Carolina del Rivero and Donato Juárez did an impromptu demo to our arrangement of Oblivion.
We had a great time playing with bandoneonist Bob Barnes this weekend for a Madison Tango Society Milonga. Thanks to Jen and Tony for making it such a weekend and great event!
