Music students to tango in Calumet

By Jennifer Lewandowski
Reporter Staff

Members of the Department of Music have planned an evening of tango music in Buffalo's Calumet Arts Cafe Oct. 23.

Lorena Guillen, a doctoral student in the musicology program, and Alejandro Rutty, a doctoral student in the composition program, will bring back the music once popular at the turn of the century and into the 1920s, '30s, 40s and '50s, beginning at 8 p.m. in the Calumet on Chippewa Street in downtown Buffalo. A traditional Argentinean dinner will be served at 6 p.m.

Tickets for dinner and the show are $35, while tickets for the show only are $15. They are available at the Calumet.

A native Argentinean and performer of diverse genres of music, Guillen will sing songs from the golden era of tango-the 1920s to '50s-including "Nostalgias," "Sur," "Chiquilin de Bachin" and "Los Mareados," some of which were written by tango's most famous composers, including Anibal Troilo, Astor Piazzola, Mariano Mores and Juan Carlos Cobian.

Guillen, who began singing tango music in the late 1980s in Argentinean nightclubs, has performed at several United States venues, the most recent of which include Bennington College in Vermont and UB's Latin Festival.

Rutty will accompany Guillen on piano, and Tito Castro, a well-known bandoneonist, will join the duo. Castro, one of just a few in the U.S. who plays the bandoneon-a type of accordion-has performed with tango superstars such as Alberto Castillo, Roberto Goyeneche and Libertad Lamarque. He has toured Argentina, Peru, Colombia, Canada and the U.S., performing in the Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center and Rockefeller Center. His work also is included in the film score of the upcoming film "Flawless," starring Robert De Niro.

While tango often is thought of as dance music, the Calumet performance will revive tango music as a listening pleasure-a standard in night clubs and on radio stations in Argentina and Uruguay, akin to the popularity of jazz in the U.S.