The Friday Noon Concert Series

The Friday Noon Concert Series

presents

Bach Bandoneon Duo

Heyni Solera, bandoneón

Rodrigo Avalos, bandoneón

Friday, May 20, 2022

12:00 pm - 12:30 pm

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC - RSVP required

(limited seating available)

Program

Bach and the Bandoneón: Tango Meets Classical

About the Artists:

Praised for her “soulful bandoneón” (Washington Classical Review), Heyni Solera is a sought after bandoneonist based in Washington, D.C. Solera has enjoyed a career in the US and abroad playing with performances in Argentina, Canada and Australia collaborating with prominent musicians in the tango music scene. Heyni regularly performs with the Da Capo Tango Orchestra, which focuses on playing danceable tangos and is part of the cello/bandoneon duo, Arco & Aire, with cellist Maxfield Wollam-Fisher. She is also the bandoneonist of Solidaridad Tango Orquesta which focuses on female tango musicians in a typically male dominated genre. As a scholar, she received her Master of Music degree in Ethnomusicology at the University of Maryland, College Park. She has developed the lectures A GPS for Tango Listening: What Makes Tango a Tango? and Today’s Woman in Tango: Carving Out Spaces amongst others. Past projects include playing in the orchestra of the highly praised IN Series production of Le Cabaret de Carmen at Source Theatre in Washington, D.C. and at Baltimore Theatre Project in Baltimore, Maryland. Solera’s projects include “Today’s Tango with Heyni”, a mini-series that features today’s contemporary tango musicians throughout the world, the EP album Overture, an original contemporary tango recording project with Arco & Aire, and a bandoneón duo album dedicated to J.S. Bach to was recorded in Argentina.  

Rodrigo Avalos is an Argentine composer, arranger, bandoneon and guitar player. He was born in Olavarría and started his musical studies at an early age. In 2017, he graduated from the Escuela de Música Popular de Avellaneda as a guitar tango player. Since that year, he began studying composition with Gabriel Senanes. Between 2016 and 2019, he was the musical director of the Orquesta Típica La Carmen, an orchestra of twelve musicians. This orchestra performed his arrangements and original compositions, and played in many theaters and milongas of Buenos Aires. He successfully completed two tours in several European countries. Currently, he is working as a bandoneon professor at the Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires Tango Orchestra and was also a part of the Orquesta Escuela Emilio Balcarce. As a composer, he is writing music for various ensembles, instrumentations and film scores.