Maestro Raúl Jaurena (1941-2021) was one of the great bandoneon players of his generation. The Grammy nominee and Latin Grammy winner was both a protegé and preservationist of Astor Piazzolla, with whom he performed at the Montreal Jazz Festival.
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Tango Gotham Tributes One of the Great Bandoneonistas
The Maestro left us on January 5, 2021. Our condolences to his family.
Tango Gotham, a tango show tribute to Maestro Raúl Jaurena, premieres at the Thalia Spanish Theatre in Sunnyside, Queens on Friday, May 28, 2021 at 8pm. The show runs for five weekends, Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm, and Sundays at 4pm, through June 25-27.
Tickets from $37 at thaliatheatre.org
Tango is all about embracing your partner and letting the music flow through your bodies. During the pandemic, we haven’t been able to hold each other, but even watching people embrace is comforting.
This isn’t just a tango show. It’s the Thalia Spanish Theatre’s farewell to its Music Director, and the New York tango community’s parting embrace of a great artist. If you want to say goodbye to the maestro, please comment on our social media channels.
This special tango show is built around classic tango themes and some of Jaurena’s own compositions. It’s presented by house Producer Angel Gil Orrios 🇪🇸 with Musical Direction by Emiliano Messiez.
Sarita Apel with Andres Bravo and Analia Carreño with Luis Ramirez will dance. Bravo is the maestro’s son-in-law, so this is real.
Vocalists Marga Mitchell and Mario D’Boedo join the band Emiliano Messiez (piano), Leandro Ragusa (bandoneon), Pablo Lanouguere (bass) and Federico Diaz (guitar).
Tango is African Kongo culture that passed through Cuba to Montevideo, Uruguay and Buenos Aires, Argentina. Medellín, Colombia has strong tango traditions too. Andres Bravo is Colombian. 🇺🇾🇦🇷🇨🇴
We hear “La Cumparsita” (the Uruguayan tango that always ends a milonga tango party).
Adiós Maestro.
Raúl Jaurena
[“Adios nonino” is one of Piazzolla’s masterpieces. He wrote the requiem for his father who died in 1959 while Piazzolla was touring New York City.]
Maestro Jaurena born in Uruguay on August 26, 1941. He began his career accompanying Argentine tango legends like Roberto Goyeneche and Edmundo Rivera.
The Maestro was a long-time New Yorker. He was music director of the Thalia Spanish Theatre in Sunnyside, Queens, and formed the New York Tango Trio with Pablo Aslan and Ethan Iverson.
Juarena was present in New York’s tango and theatre communities. He was such a gentleman, we didn’t realize what a world-renowned artist he was. He was el padrino (godfather) to many younger artists.
When we were Tango Beat® (the predecessor to New York Latin Culture Magazine), we once danced tango on the Thalia stage at one of Jaurena’s shows, and had him over for dinner at our house. The Maestro’s daughter is a respected tango teacher and performer in New York City.
Raúl was a bridge from the Golden Age of Tango, to Piazzolla’s tango nuevo generation, to the present. We miss you. Adios nonino.
