2023 Juried Art Show Winner
Elena Øhlander

SUNDAY, MAY 12 AT 4:00PM

EMILIO SOLLA & TRIBUTANGO

Visual Artist
Kim Collier

ST. PAUL’S BY-THE-SEA EPISCOPAL CHURCH

SIGNATURE CONCERT SPONSOR

THE ARTISTS

Emilio Solla 

Latin Grammy winner and multi-Grammy nominee, Argentine-born and New York-based pianist and composer Emilio Solla’s first band, Apertura, (1983-1989) was praised by Astor Piazzolla as one of the most interesting new sounds in the Buenos Aires scene in 1986. Today, with eleven CDs as bandleader and more than forty as arranger/producer, he is regarded by peers and critics as one of the most outstanding and unique composers in the Tango-Jazz field, a musical language which blends Argentine tango and folk with jazz and other contemporary music styles. He has performed all around Europe, Japan, the US and Latin America to rave reviews in many of the most important jazz houses and festivals, such as Bim Huis, Lincoln Center, Marciac, Blue Note, Fasching and more.

Solla moved to New York in 2006, and since then he has composed for, recorded and toured with Paquito D’Rivera, Arturo O’Farrill, Edmar Castañeda, Cristina Pato and many others jazz and classical music greats, besides performing regularly with his different projects at the Jazz Standard, Jazz at Lincoln Center and Birdland. Former members of his bands include jazz stars Donny Mc Caslin, Omer Avital, Jorge Rossy, Jeff Ballard and more.

He continues to tour Europe and the US while working as a free-lance arranger and pianist in different projects in NY. His NY based quintet Bien Sur! released its first CD in 2010 with special guest Billy Hart. This album was included in the Best of 2010 list by Downbeat Magazine. Since November 2010, he is leading a nine-piece orchestra, La Inestable de Brooklyn, featuring some of the strongest jazz players in NYC. Their first CD, Second Half (2015) was Nominated for a Grammy Award as Best Latin Jazz Album. In November 2014 Solla’s first symphonic work had its World Premiere at the Palau de la Musica, during the Barcelona Jazz Festival and its US Premier at the Chicago Symphony Hall. 2017 took him back to Buenos Aires for the Premiere of the symphonic version of his Suite Piazzollana. In 2018, he started composing for a new project, the Tango Jazz Orchestra, a 17-piece big band, taking his blend of Latin American sounds and jazz to a whole new level of accomplishment. This orchestra released its first album, “Puertos” on August 28, 2019. This album won the Latin Grammy 2020 for Best Jazz Album and one of Solla’s compositions, La Novena, was awarded a Grammy Nomination in 2019 as Best Instrumental Arrangement.

Tributango

In 2013 Mr. Solla was appointed Music Director of a new tango series at the prestigious Zinc Bar in NYC. Without hesitation he brought together two great tango Maestros: Latin Grammy Award winner bandoneon player Raul Jaurena and Grammy Nominee bassist Pablo Aslan. This gave him the opportunity to go deeper into the tradition of his homeland’s music. After three years of playing together every week, the trio recently went into the studio to record “Tributango,” where Solla contributed arrangements of old tango standards (including a piece by Astor Piazzolla) and some of his own compositions written specially for this project in classic tango style. Tango for dancing is at the core of the trio’s music. Scheduled for Fall 2016 release, we feature here two unmastered tracks from this work.

Raul Jaurena

Raul Jaurena, master of the Tango, is among today’s most prominent bandoneon players. His music plays a very personal tribute to the influences of his native South America and his adopted hometown of New York. It combines the traditional roots of the tango and the style of the “Tango Nuevo” influenced by Astor Piazzolla, who once called him one of the greatest bandoneon players of his time.

He was raised in Uruguay and his father taught him how to play the bandoneon – at the age of eight he already joined a tango orchestra. As a member of and adaptor for various renowned tango-ensembles in the nineteen-sixties and seventies in Uruguay, Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Ecuador and Venezuela, Raul Jaurena lays the tracks for his career. A performance together with Astor Piazzolla at the Montreal Jazz Festival turns out be guiding for his musical development.

The conservation of the musical spirit of Astor Piazzolla becomes his personal vocation: Jaurena’s tango interpretations which are enriched by influences of jazz, his own arrangements and spontaneous improvisations, fascinate a new generation of listeners and dancers. Besides, his activities remain as many-faceted as the artist himself. His arrangements and his skills as a composer and a solo player make 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 is 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 “Te amo Tango”. He has played with Cuban Jazz saxophone player Paquito D’Rivera, Yo Yo Ma, Giora Feidman, Tango Five and others. As a soloist he plays with prominent ensembles and orchestras throughout Europe. He has performed at different Universities and Schools with Tango Music Symposium in Hannover, Halle Kassel, Hamburg, Lubeck, Munter, Lingen, Landshut, Muhigorf, Heidelberg, Bonn, Kiel, Celle, Wurzburg, and Bremen. 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.

Pablo Aslan

Argentine-born Pablo Aslan is in demand for his skills as a producer and bassist, and for his knowledge of traditional and contemporary tango. His most recent album as a leader is Piazzolla in Brooklyn, a tribute to the late Nuevo Tango master. His previous CD, Tango Grill (Zoho Music), was nominated for a Latin Grammy Award for Best Tango Album and a Grammy for Best Latin Jazz Album. Currently he is a member of the Glass House Orchestra, a multinational ensemble that performs in Europe and North America, and the Astoria Tango Orchestra.

He plays regularly with small ensembles in the New York City area, including a three-year ongoing residence at Zinc Bar with Grammy nominee Emilio Solla. Aslan recorded Tango Jazz: Live at Jazz at Lincoln Center (Paquito Records 2010) with Cuban maestro Paquito D’Rivera and toured Europe the following year as music director of D’Rivera’s Tango Jazz Septet. He has performed and recorded with Yo-Yo Ma, Shakira, Lalo Schifrin, Osvaldo Golijov, Pablo Ziegler, Frank London, the New World Symphony, and the Philadelphia Orchestra, among many others. An active researcher and educator, he served as the Artistic Director of the Reed Tango Music Institute in 2013-14 and is currently Featured Artist at the Indiana University Tangueros Conference.

Nick Danielson

Violinist Nick Danielson enjoys a versatile career as a classical and Tango musician. He is the assistant concertmaster of the New York City Ballet Orchestra and was a longtime member of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. He can be heard on many of Orpheus recordings, including Stravinsky’s “Concertino” on the Grammy winning CD, “Shadow Dances.” Nick has toured and recorded extensively as a soloist and chamber musician, and with numerous Tango ensembles. His latest recording with Otero, “Vital” (World Village) won the 2010 Latin Grammy for best classical album. Among his most recent collaborations, he has performed with pianist-composer Fernando Otero, sax master Paquito D’Rivera, and Tango legend Pablo Ziegler. Nick received his training at the Curtis Institute of Music with Ivan Galamian, after which he spent five years as first violinist of the Chester String Quartet. He has made New York his home since 1988.