Spend a Sunday Evening With Tango and Opera at SDMA

Tango did not start in the ballrooms. It started in the arrabales, the outer neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, where the music picked up its memory and its longing.

Camarada brings that sound to Balboa Park for one night, with a tango quartet, two opera singers from Tijuana, and a program built entirely from Astor Piazzolla.

From the Arrabales to El Prado

Poetics of the Arrabal pairs the Camarada Tango Quartet with Ópera Explicita for a cross-border program of Piazzolla, arranged by bassist Andrés Martín.

You get the aching side of the catalog in Oblivion and Adiós Nonino, then the theatrical swing of Yo soy María and Balada para un loco. Mario Montenegro directs.

Two Singers Who Call Tijuana Home

Mezzo-soprano Gabriela Bojórquez is one of the defining voices in Tijuana’s music scene, and she sings to crowds on both sides of the border.

Tenor Martín de León was born in Argentina and now lives in Tijuana, with a career split between opera stages and the Argentine popular song tradition. Between them, the program gets opera’s drama and tango’s grain in the same breath.

A Quartet Whose Bassist Wrote the Arrangements

The quartet is Beth Ross Buckley on flute, David Buckley on violin, Dana Burnett on piano, and Andrés Martín on double bass. Martín wrote the arrangements, so the person shaping this Piazzolla is sitting in the band.

His own instrumental works sit alongside the Piazzolla, which makes the program read as a conversation between two composers rather than a tribute to one.

See you there!

Piazzolla in a museum, two voices from across the border, and a bassist who wrote every arrangement. If you have never heard tango up close, this is where to start.

📆 Sunday, October 4 | 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM
📍 1450 El Prado, San Diego
🎟️ Secure your seats here
ℹ️ Get all the details here

See you there, San Diego!