Lorena Guillen, vocalist and artistic director, has become a figure of the Tango scene in US by presenting with her Lorena Guillen Tango Ensemble imaginative programs that center on, but also expand, the notions of traditional tango standards and “new” tango. 

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From her childhood, Lorena remembers being mesmerized by the sounds of her grandfather's tango and opera recording collection and discovering the major figures of the Argentinian folk by attending with her father various festivals. Those experiences cultivated her musical passion and lead her to express herself through singing in this wide array of styles with the most natural flexibility.

 

Lorena brings her long musical experience, on diverse stages at the national and international level, as a classically trained singer, popular song interpreter and music director, traveling as far as Kathmandu (Nepal) and taking her own Durham-Chapel Hill choir in tour to Argentina (August 2015). She has presented concerts at such venues as: Kleinhans Buffalo Symphony Circle (NY), Fricks Museum-Summer Concert Series (Pittsburgh, PN), Chautauqua Institution (NY), “New Music New Haven” of Yale University (CT), Music Gallery at Toronto (Canada), Shakespeare Theater (Wash. DC), Music-at-the-ForeFront (OH), Stockhausen Music Festival (Germany), MusicBox Concert Series (Saint Lucia, W.I) and Puerto Rico University.

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Lorena has received two Notable Latina Awards from the Latino Coalition of the Triad, and awarded artist grants from NewMusicUSA, Arts Greensboro through their "Regional Artist Award" and a Diversity Mini-Grant from University of North Carolina-College of Visual and Performing Arts.

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As a “tango” scholar, Guillén is the author of the articles on “Tango” and "Astor Piazzolla” published in the Grove Dictionary of American Music (2nd ed.), on Argentine female tango singers of the 1920s and 1930s, and on oral-history in music for the International Review Journal of Music and Music Performance.  She regularly presents lecture-recitals on “tango” related topics in conferences and university venues.

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Guillén has recorded for Innova Records, University of Arizona Recordings, and Kindermusik, including her tango albums, The Other Side of My Heart, with her own Lorena Guillén Tango Ensemble, her previous Never Too Tango, with the participation of notable guest artists of the tango and "classical" scene, such as double-bass player Pablo Aslan, bandoneon player David Alsina and the Amherst Saxophone Quartet.

 

Guillen has been faculty at State University of New York-Buffalo, Hartwick College (NY), Artist in Residence at the Saint Lucia School of Music in the Saint Lucia island (West Indies), and is currently teaching at University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She is the music director of the Triangle Jewish Chorale since 2011, a community regional choir of more than 50 members.

 

For more information follow "Lorena Guillen Tango Ensemble" on Facebook.