Sinfonia featuring the Lorena Guillén Tango Ensemble and Winterbirds

With its mesmerizing style and sound, the award winning Lorena Guillén Tango Ensemble has captivated audiences with soulful arrangements of Argentine tango standards and original compositions that create a dynamic tango and pan-Latin fusion. The musicians in the group each have rich and extensive experience in Argentine tango, jazz, classical and contemporary music, and other world and popular music styles, all of which can be heard on their debut recording, The Other Side of My Heart. “The Not Your Average Folk Contest ” Grand Prize Winner-2021″ and “World Music” category winners of NC Museum of Art 2021, the LGTE is currently recording its second album Tango Diaspora, which plans to release at the beginning of 2022.

Based in North Carolina, the group has been committed to collaborations and concerts with some of the Triangle and Triad “milongas” and tango-dance organizations: “Durham-Tango” and “Alma-Tango” (WS), with which it has shared the stage in many occasions in concerts, festivals and workshops. In 2019, the ensemble developed “In The Embrace of Tango: Jewish Tango Project,” a program that explores Argentine tango and its crossed-path with Jewish culture: tango in the pre-WWII Europe, later in the ghettos, in the early 20th century NYC and Buenos Aires Yiddish theater and through compositions of the first generation of Argentine-Jewish composers. Concerts were presented at the Levin Jewish Community Center (Durham), for the Shalom Club (Raleigh) and in a mini-workshop and concert along with the singer-students of the UNCG University Chorale (Carol Ott, conductor) and tango dancers Eduardo and Alicia Lazarowski (Durham-Tango).

Winterbirds offers a powerful take on Progressive Folk. Deeply versed in traditional Appalachian Folk, Bluegrass and Newgrass, Classical Music, and Contemporary Chamber Music, these young performers cloak timeless melodies in unusual instrumental colors and thrilling textures. At once familiar and strange, their debut album Shaker Songs weaves the poetry of the American Shakers into a compelling exploration of the tensions between humility, self-expression, and love.​