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Tango Ports
Natalia Bolani Brings Tango Music From Uruguay
Performers
Puertos de Tango (Tango Ports) aims to revisit lesser-known themes of great Uruguayan authors, thus keeping wonderful compositions alive. The project includes a special tribute to Astor Piazzolla and the great Uruguayan poet Horacio Ferrer, evoking much of their creative duo and reinterpreting part of their repertoire inspired by the artists’ homeland, Uruguay. In this kind of cosmopolitan tango without temporal and spatial boundaries, some versions in Italian and French are included, justified in the words of Ramón Pelinski (Argentine ethnomusicologist and composer) who describes tango as a “global metaphor”: a tango with infinite possibilities, capable of imagining and travelling to other worlds, without fear that “its entire life is yesterday, holding it in its past.”
Natalia Bolani seeks her own interpretation from her perspective as an actor, resignifying and valuing the chosen texts through contemporary sounds, mainly appealing to the sound of the piano and the bandoneón, instruments with strong organic and referential connotations in Rio de la Plata culture.
The project intends to attract new audiences to this genre, as well as to offer a repertoire not usually enjoyed by those more familiar with the music. Its raison d’être is, ultimately, the encounter with the emotions, a meeting where interpretive and sonorous power intermingle in the same waters, in a kind of cathartic ritual through artistic creation.
Presented by the Embassy of Uruguay and MLC Estates LLP
Supported by:
Performers
Natalia Bolani
Italian-Uruguayan actor, dancer, announcer, and singer Natalia Bolani was born in Montevideo, Uruguay. She has been alternating between her activities as an actor and singer for several years. A graduate of Universidad de la República as a Public Translator in Italian, she is also proficient in French, Portuguese, and English.
She began her artistic training with studies in classical dance, jazz, and flamenco in Uruguay and Spain; popular singing with Fernando Ulivi; lyrical singing at the Hugo Balzo Conservatory with teacher Beatriz Pazos, and in the Lyrical Singing Workshop with teacher Gloria de León; theater studies at the EMAD – School of Dramatic Art of Montevideo, as well as courses and further studies, both in Uruguay and abroad.
As a singer, she was part of the University Choir of the University of the Republic under the direction of maestro Francisco Simaldoni. She continues her vocal training with singer and coach María Bentancur at the Institute for Vocal Advancement since 2017.
Since 2011, she has been dedicating herself more emphatically to the Tango genre. She has participated in various events, including the Tangovivo Festival at Sala Zitarrosa, accompanied by the Tango Trio La Yunta; performances alongside Italian pianist and arranger Fabrizio Mocata in several cities in Italy, Germany, and Switzerland; at the Solís Theater with the Tango Orchestra of the City of Montevideo, conducted by Maestro Alvaro Hagopián; at the Inter-American Festival of Poetry and Chamber Music by Iris Bombet Franco, with arrangements by Uruguayan composer and pianist Beatriz Lockhart; and many more.
She released her debut solo album titled “Nueve Puertos,” which was nominated for Best Tango Album at the 2022 Graffiti Awards. In 2022, she performed the show “Piazzolla Lado B” at the Solís Theater, Sala Zavala Muniz, and SODRE Sala Hugo Balzo. In June 2022, she represented Uruguay at the International Tango Festival in Medellín, Colombia. She is currently in the mixing and mastering phase of her second album: “Piazzolla Lado B,” a live recorded album.
Álvaro Hagopián
Álvaro Hagopián began his musical studies at the age of 5. He studied piano at the Fálleri-Balzo Conservatory and Orchestral Conducting with Maestro Federico García Vigil at the University School of Music (Faculty of Arts of Universidad de la República).
He has participated in various courses and workshops nationally and internationally. He has conducted the Sodre Symphony Orchestra, the Montevideo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Punta del Este Symphony Orchestra, the Asunción Symphony Orchestra (Paraguay), as well as various Youth Symphony Orchestras in Uruguay. He has also performed with the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires.
He was the pianist and musical arranger for the “Galas de Tango” show of the Montevideo Philharmonic Orchestra, also serving as assistant director and pianist of the Orchestra on its tour of Egypt. He has been part of various tango orchestras in Uruguay and has played with important figures of the genre, such as Gustavo Nocetti, Raúl Garello, María Graña, Raúl Jaurena, Daniel Binelli, Héctor Ulises Passarella, and Rubén Juárez, among others. He has participated several times in different festivals of this genre and has spread the city music of Montevideo in Austria, the United States, France, Finland, Egypt, Armenia, Brazil, Argentina, and Peru. He was the musical arranger for the “Adagio a Zitarrosa” show of the Montevideo Philharmonic Orchestra, and has musically arranged and directed the Philharmonic with the duo Larbanois-Carrero, Malena Muyala, and Laura Canoura, among others.
