Educational Background/Training

QuinTango’s five professional musicians combine classical training with a commitment to expanding understanding of the immigrant experience using the lens of tango, one of the great immigrant art forms. QuinTango has provided workshops to public schools and youth ensembles in Virginia, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Indiana, Mexico, and Guatemala. QuinTango members hold advanced degrees in music from DePauw University, Yale, Manhattan School of Music, and University of Oklahoma. Individually they are private teachers in their own studios, composers, a radio host on classical WETA, an organist/choral director, and freelance musicians who perform regularly with the National Symphony, Washington National Opera, Detroit Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Alexandria Symphony, Austin Symphony, and American Pops Orchestra. As individuals and a group, QuinTango has appeared as soloists with orchestras in Russia, Cuba, Mexico, and throughout the USA. QuinTango members work regularly with youth and seniors and look forward to engaging both throughout Virginia.

About the Artist/Ensemble

QuinTango has served Title One schools in Northern Virginia since 2002 under the auspices of Washington Performing Arts. We are excited to have the opportunity to share our expertise with the rest of Virginia through the VCA Teaching Artist Roster. In addition to being private teachers and professionally active freelance musicians, QuinTango members are singer/songwriters, a videographer, and a Grammy-nominated composer. They have been classroom teachers in Mexico, Argentina, South Africa, and the USA, teaching elementary through university. Among them, they are fluent in Spanish, English, French, Mandarin and German. They have studied tango dance, trained as a professional soccer player in Argentina, worked in IT, taught cooking classes, and biked solo across the USA. QuinTango members are single, married, parents and grandparents, diverse in age, cultural background, and believers in the power of the arts to create community and change lives. 

QuinTango’s teaching is performance-based and process driven. Standing on stage (or in a zoom box) is a moment of truth that can reinforce good habits or make students regret bad ones. Every class or workshop includes a performance.  

Educational Program Description

The Story of Tango – kindergarten-HS. A school video concert with Q&A – in-person or zoom. This 45-minute activity traces tango’s birth in the immigrant neighborhoods of Buenos Aires and Montevideo through its arrival in Paris, France, and its ultimate ascendancy to the world stage. The gift the poor immigrant neighborhood in Argentina gave to the world, tango has become part of the cultures of Japan, Turkey, Afghanistan, Iran, Europe and the Americas. It is a perfect approach to geography, economics, history, and music. Session includes a study guide. 1-5 sessions. 

StringTango – QuinTango provides student-level tango parts (violin, viola, cello, bass) and a QuinTango performance video to classroom teachers, to be followed with coaching in person or over zoom. Students learn to play a tango and to experience performing with a professional chamber music group. The workshop can include string technique elements, practice skills, orchestra etiquette, and chamber music practices. Elementary – High School. 2 – 10 sessions. A complimentary online planning meeting with the classroom teacher/event organizer is required. 

Tango/Soccer – QuinTango teaches basic soccer and tango dance elements in person, emphasizing the roles of respect, repetition and discipline in acquiring skills. For expanded sessions, students work with QuinTango’s Grammy-nominated composer to write their own music. A complimentary online planning meeting with the classroom teacher/event organizer is required. Audience: 3-5th graders. 2-10 sessions. 

Why the world loves Tango – QuinTango will provide an in-person, virtual or recorded performance that answers the question, what makes tango so special? Can include dancers. A complimentary online planning meeting with the host and QuinTango director is required so that the content can be geared to each audience. History, geography, popular culture. 1 session. 

Fees

Virtual: $80 per musician per hour. In person $120 per musician per hour. Each activity involves a different combination of musicians and dancers. Activity fee to be established as the number of sessions and musicians involved is determined.

Audiences

• Elementary Students
• Adults