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.

The bandoneon has influenced Jaurena’s life right from the cradle. 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. The fascination for this highly emotional music grabbed him and has not let go of him ever since. As a member of and adaptor for various renowed tango-ensembles in the nineteensixties 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 composes in 1995 for the Irene Hultman Dance Company debuts 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. Over the years he takes charge of the musical direction of many other stage projects and among other things plays guest performances at the Thalia Spanish Theatre in New York. 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 including:

American Composer Orchestra at Carnegie Hall (Conductor Denis Rusell Davis) Pan American Symphony Orchestra Washington DC (Conductor Sergio Busle) Symphony Orchestra of Oficial Radio of Vienna (Conductor Bernd Ruf) Hollywood Bowl Orchestra California (Conductor Joan Maucceri) Symphony Orchestra of Richmond Virginia (Conductor Gerardo Edelstein) Orquesta filarmonica de Montevideo Uruguay (Conductor Federico GarciaVigil) Philarmonic Orchestra of Stuttgart Germany (Conductor Bern Ruf) The Bronx Arts Ensemble Orchestra (Conductor Pablo Zinger) Philharmonie Sudwestfalen (Conductor Rusell Harris), Kultur Plus Kaiserslautern SWR Rundfunkochester (Conductor Grzegorz Nowak), The Gotan Orquesta Filarmonica of Montevideo (Conductor Federico Garcia Vigil), Colonial Symphony Orchestra (Conductor Gisele Ben Dor), Israel Chamber Orchestra (Double Concerto For Bandoneon and Guitar) Conductor (Noam Sheriff and Guitar Victor Villadangos), Berlin Philarmonie Deutches Kammerorchester Berlin (Conductor Markus Poschner), Classical Music Concerts in Millennium Park, Chicago (Conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto) National Gallery Orchestra Wasington DC (Conductor Jose Serebrier), Santa Barbara Symphony Orchestra (Conductor Gisele Ben dor) Werzgebirgisches Sinfonie Orchester Aue (Conductor Richard Vardigans), TODO TANGO in Washington DC. with the Pan American Sinfonic Orquesta, The Sinfonie orchester Aachen (Conductor Enrique Batiz) Philharmonie Sudwestfalen (Conductor Rusell Harris).

Along with Maestro Giora Feidman he has toured throughout Europe performing a series of programs including Klezmer and Tango Music. 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. Raul Jaurena also participated in the 35th Anniversary of the Symphony Orchestra of Fort Worth conduted by German Gutierrez and the Butler Symphony Orchestra (Conducted byl Stanley De Rusha). He was invited as a special guest to the Internacional Accordeon Festival in San Antonio, Texas and his show Tango & Tango has great success at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago.

He toured through Europe with TANGO FIVE and singer Marga Mitchell with the program AMANDO A BUENOS AIRES in 2001. He has been invited to at the Merkin Concert Hall in New York with Russian violinist Nina Bellina, the Cleveland Museum of Art en World Music and Dance Series, the Orchestra Concertante of Chicago conducted by Hilel Kagan, and at the Fiedrichsbau Theatre in Stuttgart, Germany along with TANGO FIVE and Marga Mitchell.

In 2003 he does a series of concerts with the Pan American Symphony Orquesta Opera Maria De Buenos Aires, Sudwestdeutsche Philharmonie Konstanz with Marga Mitchell and Tango Five, The North/South Chamber Orchestra at the Merkin Hall (New York) Conductor Max Lifchitz, and Tango Mundo at Montclair State University. He performs a series of concerts with Giora Feidman he tours (Boblingen, Balingen, Russelsheim Theatre, Wurzburg, Ludwigsburg, Bonn, Tuttlinge, Stadthalle, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Switzerland and Germany) During the same year he performs with The Little Orchestra Society at Lincoln Center along with conductor Dino Anagnost, and also performs with LEST' TANGO at East Carolina University. In Israel he performs with the Israel Kibbutz Orchestra, and in Finland at the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival. He was presented an ACE Award (Asocacion de cronistas de espectaculos de la ciudad de New York) for his professional trajectory and won a LATIN GRAMMY 2007 for the best Tango Album "Te amo Tango"

As the result of a continuing search for new experiences, Jaurena’s music has turned into something truly unique. It reflects the influences of different cultures as well as one hundred years of tango history with all its contradicting emotions. Raul Jaurena - the man that Astor Piazolla once called one of the greatest bandoneon players ever - has established a unique connection to his instrument: Genuine, open, touching, with stunning technical brilliance his play has enriched and added an important facet to modern tango interpretation.