En Vivo: A Duo of Duos

We're back! Guardia Vieja is so excited to be back with our second En Vivo Concert Series weekend experience. In honor of this being our second En Vivo, we are playing with a couple of dualities, featuring Dúo Villarreal Crom and the bandoneon/piano duo Heyni Solera & Sumi Lee.

Run of Show

• Villarreal Crom Peña (April 14th, 8-11pm): A peña is the equivalent of a milonga for Argentine Folkloric music and dance. The Villarreal Crom Peña takes the audience on a tour through the diverse and exquisite folkloric music of Argentina in the format of a seated concert. We aim to bring in the dance with an intro to Chacarera at 8pm and a concert start time of 9pm. Attendees of the class will be able to try out what they learned to the live Chacarera during the concert.
• A GPS for Tango Listening: What Makes Tango Tango (April 15, 2023, 12-3pm): To get where you’re going in Argentine Tango, it helps to know where you’re coming from. Dialogue with Heyni Solera as she brings her sense of adventure and scholarship to explore what makes Argentine tango the genre that it is, how it has developed to present day and where it can take us in the future.
• What the H*** Is Musicality Anyways? (April 15, 2023, 7-8pm): A musicality workshop for dancers of all levels. Includes live music examples by the Dúo Villarreal Crom, and movement exercises.
• Live Music Milonga featuring Dúo Villarreal Crom (April 15, 2023, 8pm-midnight): Our very own DJ Craig Herrington will keep us dancing before, after, and in-between live music tandas (sets) by Dúo Villarreal Crom.
• Everything You Need to Know About the Bandoneon (April 16, 2023, 1:30-2:45pm): No, it's not an accordian. Unfamiliar with the iconic Tango instruments, the Bandoneon? Join Heyni Solera as she combines an overview and live demos to teach you everthing you will want to know about the Bandoneon.
• En Vivo Concert: Heyni & Sumi (April 16, 2023, 3-4pm): This seated concert will feature solos and duos of contemporary Tango on the Bandoneon and Piano, featuring Heyni Solera and Sumi Lee.
• Putting Things Together (April 16, 2023, 8-9pm): For a very special closing event, master puppeteer, Patricio Crom, will be presenting a very special Puppet Show! We won't give away too much here, but we are so excited to share this unique offering for the very first time with the Cleveland Community!

Note: The Villarreal Crom Peña and Live Music Milonga featuring Dúo Villarreal Crom will also include libations curated by Chemical X Bartending.

Venues

We are so excited to be featuring our neighborhood Gordon Square Arts District in Detroit Shoreway!

• GreenRoom will be our home base for most of the weekend, located at 5900 Detroit Ave, Cleveland, OH44102.
• Our last event has some special staging requirements, so we will move to Maelstrom Collaborative Arts for Putting Things Together, the puppet show. Maelstrom is located at 5403 Detroit Ave, Cleveland, OH 44102, just a short walk from our home base.

We highly encourage checking out Ready Set! Coffee Roasters, Wyne, and Il Rione for coffee, wine, and authentic pizza, throughout the weekend. Not too far away in Ohio City, there is also Heart of Gold, Juneberry, and Amba, for sandwiches, brunch, or upscale fusion Indian food/cocktails. There is a ton more to see, taste and explore, so if you are looking for something specific, please ask!

Tickets

Don't wait for the FOMO to settle in, grab your tickets now! While we highly encourage the complete experience, we have a variety of ways for you to join us on this musical adventure! If you prefer to gamble and choose your own adventure, tickets at the door will range from $40-60/event, capacity permitting.

Note: Please visit Guardia Vieja's website linked here for more information on our COVID policies.

Artists

Not convinced?! Learn a bit more about our artists by reading their bios below or better yet check out some of the linked videos to get a taste of their music!

First up, we have the soulful Dúo Villarreal Crom. Juan Villarreal and Patricio Crom met on stage at the Milonga del Moran in 2010 in Buenos Aires. Patricio had come to play with his quintet "Malo Conocido" and Juan went to sing as a guest of this group.​ Shortly afterwards they met again at the Club Atletico Fernandez Fierro (CAFF) and decided to get together with the excuse of rehearsing some tangos, especially the tango "Marion" with which Patricio was very enthusiastic. That was the starting point of the Dúo Villarreal Crom.

From that moment on, Juan and Patricio began a long journey playing in the most important milongas and venues of Buenos Aires such as La Viruta, Parakultural, Club Morán, Auditorio CCK and Usina del Arte and sharing stages with great musicians and dancers such as Chino Laborde & Dipi Kvitko, Osvaldo Peredo, Pablo Rodriguez & Corina Herrera, Rodrigo Fonti & Majo Martirena, Hernán "Cucuza" Castiello and others.

They have toured Europe, South America and the USA playing in important festivals such as La Locura Tango Festival (Innsbruck), Festival Primavera Zurich, Philadelphia Tango festival, Lyon Tango festival, Het Concergebow (Amsterdam).

Juan Villarreal and Patricio Crom released in 2012 their first album "De corte romántico" in which they include versions of some of the most romantic tangos and waltzes in history. In 2015 they released their second album "Cinco Otoños" with milonguero classics and their own compositions. In 2019 they released "En la luna de Valencia", an album that was recorded in Valencia, Spain with guest artists such as the guitarist Raúl Kiokio and the singers Nelson Scarlatto and Gavión.

​In 2022 they presented "D'arienzo en guitarras", their new album dedicated to the King of Compás, with stellar guests such as the singer Pablo Ramos, son Osvaldo Ramos (the last great singer of D'arienzo), Trio Malamado and the guitarist Guido Iacopetti.

Complimenting the traditional style of the Dúo Villarreal Crom, we have the charismatic contemporary duo of Heyni Solera on bandoneon and Sumi Lee on piano. Learn a little more about each of them below:

Heyni Solera: Heyni has enjoyed a career in the US and abroad performing in Argentina, Canada and Australia and collaborating with prominent tango artists such as Ramiro Boero, Julian Peralta, Pablo Jaurena, Santiago Segret, Pedro Giraudo and many more. In 2019, Heyni was a member of the Argentine tango orchestra schools La Orquesta de Tango de la Una and the Conservatorio Superior de “Manuel de Falla”, where she had the opportunity to perform in the prestigious Centro Cultural Kirchner.

Heyni is part of the cello/bandoneon duo, Arco & Aire, with cellist Maxfield Wollam-Fisher. Their arrangement of “La Bordona” won Best Latin Song for the 2022 Wammie awards, which can be found in their EP Overture. This past July, Arco & Aire recorded their first full album of new contemporary tango music, which will be released in 2023. Heyni is also the other half of the Avalos-Solera Bandoneon Duo. In April of 2022, they released the album, Bach en Bandoneon, and this past summer presented the album on their first United States tour. Heyni is the bandoneonist of Las Almas, an ensemble which focuses on female tango musicians in a typically male dominated genre, and has performed several times at the San Francisco International Arts Festival.

As a scholar, Heyni received her Masters of Music 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. These lectures have been extensively presented throughout the United States and Canada for public audiences and academics alike.

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. In April of 2022, Heyni had her Kennedy Center debut with the Latin-Grammy nominated PanAmerican Symphony Orchestra, and has performed with the ensemble at the Argentine Embassy of Washington, DC. She also creates various content such as “Today’s Tango with Heyni”, a mini-series that features today’s contemporary tango musicians throughout the world, and “Discovering Troilo,” a mini-series that delves into the iconic style of Anibal Troilo’s tango orchestra.

Sumi Lee: Born in Seoul, Korea, Ms. Lee started learning how to play piano at the age of four taught by her mother at first. Two years later she won her first gold medal at the national piano competition and went on to win the Korea daily newspaper, Dong-A daily newspaper, and National music institution competition, which are some of the most prestigious piano competitions in Korea. When she was in junior high, she had an opportunity to get European style training when she attended Summer Academy “Mozarteum” in Salzburg, Austria, and studied with Professor Christoph Lieske .

She attended the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and obtained her Master's degree after studying with Professor Mack McCray and Professor Justin Blasdale. She has also appeared in masterclasses with Professor Jin-Woo Jung, Daniel Pollack, Sharon Mann, and Harpsichord Professor Laurett Goldberg. She has studied instrumental and vocal accompanying with Professor Tim Bach at the Conservatory and she also privately studied opera coaching/vocal accompanying with Professor Marcie Stapp, 2002-2007

She has performed many times as a soloist and an accompanist:

• Her piano performances were featured in a vocal ensemble, chamber music ensemble, solo recitals, piano & guitar duo concert with guitarists Florante Aguilar & Michael Walsh, September 2004.
• She also worked as an opera rehearsal and concert accompanist with Golden Gate Opera in 2002 (Carmen), Golden West Opera in 2004-2005 (Madama Butterfly), Eastbay Aria Club in 2007-2009 (Cosi fan tutti, Don Giovanni), Peninsula Teen Opera in 2008, San Francisco Boys Chorus in 2006-2007, San Francisco Girls Chorus in 2007, Mayflower Community Chorus in 2001-2002, San Francis Drake high school Chorus and many professional opera singers.

Spring 2017, her love of Piazzolla music lead her to discover in-depth the beauty, passion, and complexity of Argentine tango music in Buenos Aires, Argentina. After a live audition, she got accepted as a pianist for the prestigious tango orchestra school, " La Orquesta Escuela de Tango Emilio Balcarce" 14th batch and performed through rigorous 2-year training that was taught by world-renowned tango musicians and teachers such as Víctor Lavallén, Ignacio Varchausky, Cristian Asato, Ramiro Boero, Guillermo Rubino, Patricio Cotella and many living maestros guest including Jose Pepe Colangelo, Osvaldo Piro, Roberto Alvarez, Daniel Binelli, Mauricio Marceli, Nicolas Ledesma, and many more. The last concert with "La Orquesta Escuela de Emilio Balcarce" at Teatro General San Martin in Buenos Aires was sold out to a large audience and aired live via national radio 2*4 and TV Publica Argentina.

Since moving back to the Bay Area in 2019 after receiving her diploma, she is actively performing and producing Traditional and Contemporary Argentine tango concerts with her colleagues & various groups in the Bay Area, California. She also formed her own international tango group, "Corazón Tango" which is consisted of the Korean-born musicians from the Emilio Balcarce Orquestra school, Buenos Aires, and had a successful tour in Seoul, Daejeon, and Pusan, South Korea October 2019.

Her ongoing projects include not only producing top-quality contemporary tango performance but also composing her own music.

Lastly, when Sumi returned to Bay Area from Argentina, she realized that the public gets limited exposure to performing artists of diverse cultures, especially in the fields of non-popular music such as Argentine Tango, and musicians do not receive sufficient support unless they have established a name for themselves already. This problem can be further exacerbated if the artists perform a culturally unique genre that is yet to be known to the masses. She believes in cultural diversity and equal opportunity for all art forms, and she is enthused about supporting talented local and visiting guest artists from all around the world to provide local audiences with diverse music programs in high-quality, live performances. She organizes live tango music performances in the Bay Area through Golden Gate Int’l Artists. If you are interested in supporting local and international artists, please subscribe to www.ggiartists.com and join for upcoming tango concerts. She is currently a member of the international female tango orchestra group, "Solidaridad".

She is currently serving the non-profit organization Music Teachers' Association of California (MTAC), San Francisco as a board of directors for the local community of music teachers and students.

Host or Publisher Guardia Vieja