Twin Cities Tango Collective 2024-2025

SUPPORT LIVE TANGO MUSIC IN MINNEAPOLIS AND ST. PAUL!
Twin Cities Tango Collective: 2024-2025.  4th year!

Twin Cities Tango Collective is creating a thriving culture of tango musicians in the Twin Cities through community ensembles, live performances, and classes dedicated to Argentine tango music. Ensembles play custom arrangements created specifically for our program, perform for seated audiences, invite guest artists / mentors, and organize milongas (social dances) to collaborate with the local tango dance community. 

Argentine tango music is deeply profound and widely varied, with a rich and complex history and an active present. Centered in Buenos Aires, Argentina, tango music and musicians have been embraced and loved throughout the world for their artistry, creativity, and depth. For interested musicians in North America, entry points into playing tango can be limited due to the lack of scores, teachers, and general resources necessary to understand the music.

Twin Cities Tango Collective makes this entry point possible for Minneapolis / St Paul musicians of all levels, and strives to build a central community around the study and performance of tango music. In only 4 years, over 100 musicians have taken part.

Community Tango Ensemble - Center For Performing Arts Concert

Ensemble Development

Twin Cities Tango Collective hosts Community Tango Ensemble: an inclusive and welcoming group that meets once a week. This ensemble is welcomes all musicians from any background, any age, any level, and does not require previous experience. This inclusive approach has led to bringing in many new musicians (over 100 in the last four years), and contributes to developing real and lasting community. Our group sounds spectacular, and we do so without blocking anyone from participation for any reason. The group has a small tuition that collectively funds a rehearsal space, and free scholarships are given on need basis. Importantly, this program can act as a connecting space to the dance community: new musicians become exposed to the tango dance community, and tango dancers become exposed to the music side. This larger community growth mindset is central.

Twin Cities Tango Collective also hosts Northwoods Tango Ensemble: an audition-based orquesta tipica that meets once a week. Northwoods is dedicated to playing tango music from the golden era, tango music for dancing. We study twice as much music, focusing on specific orchestras to deepen understanding of style and technique. Northwoods is a limited-seat ensemble that moves quickly, attracting musicians that might already be professionals but not yet experienced playing tango music. We create a positive and open weekly rehearsal environment, which functionally acts as a jumping off point for new independent groups to grow as musicians meet each other. The result is more skilled players, more bands in for our dance community, and strong positive connections throughout. Goodwill, solidarity, and local action.

Donations are allocated towards venue costs, score production, technical resources, audio needs, outreach, music instruction, and guest artists. These elements are essential for the program, and your contribution is efficiently put to most effective good use. Twin Cities Tango Collective is fiscally-sponsored by Springboard For The Arts, and all donations are tax-deductible. If you appreciate what we are building and have the means to contribute, please consider making one!

Northwoods Tango Ensemble 2024

Minnesota Tango Music Festival

Twin Cities Tango Collective hosts a May weekend-long tango music festival at the end of our year (Sep-May). This festival provides all tango ensembles in the Twin Cities with a place to showcase their work in concerts, connect with the larger community, and perform for large-scale dance events. The festival is an inspirational motivation for our ensembles, an encouraging outreach for new musicians, and an engaging weekend of milongas for our local dance community and those that travel from out of town.

This festival is a grassroots production, funded entirely through ticket sales and donations. Our organization is deeply grateful for any donation of any size, each goes a long way towards our goals of rooting tango music into the fabric of our cities. The funds are used to cover costs of venues, equipment, guest artists, musicians, score production, live sound, and production, which in turn supports the outreach and events necessary for attracting/cultivating new musicians, bands, dancers, and teachers at the local level. Twin Cities Tango Collective is fiscally-sponsored by Springboard For The Arts, and all donations are tax-deductible. If you appreciate what we are building and have the means to contribute, please consider making one!

https://www.twincitiestango.com/

Twin Cities Tango Collective is fiscally sponsored project of Springboard for the Arts. To give directly to Springboard: https://givemn.org/organization/Springboard-For-The-Arts