Tango No. 9 Plays Today at Union Square and Duende

Tango No. 9, San Francisco's premier chamber ensemble devoted to all facets of tango music, graces two Bay Area stages today, Sept. 8, 2013 with two concerts - One Free in Union Square in SF from 2:00 - 4:00 pm - as part of the Tango On The Square series for the 2013 Summer Union Square Live series http://tinyurl.com/kn7gwv7 - including dance lessons & demonstrations by members of Bay Area Tang. A feel-good experience to learn more about all aspects of tango, from the dance to the music. Bring your dancing shoes and step out onto the open air dance floor yourself, or just sit, watch, listen to the polished Tango sounds from the Bay Area's premiere tango virtuoso ensemble - Tango No.9.

In addition, on the same night - today, Sept. 8, Tango No. 9. will be performing a 9:00 pm show at Duende - a new Oakland hot spot- restaurant & bar, with an intimate upstairs listening room. Duende is located at 468 19th St., (Btwn. Telegraph & B'way) Oakland, CA 94612 (19th Street Bart station on the corner). Duende is housed in an art deco jewel building across the street from the Fox Theater and a block from the Paramount Theater. $10 cover charge. For tickets visit: http://tangonumbernine-eorg.eventbrite.com/ or call (510) 893-0174.

Tango No. 9 explores tango music in all its myriad manifestations - traditional dance music, vocal ballads, the tango nuevo of Astor Piazzolla, and more recent compositions - bringing an idiosyncratic twist to each and extend tango conventions into the 21st century. The trio of instruments - violin, piano, and trombone may seem a far cry from the more traditional orquesta tipica, but the group's inventive arrangements capture a much larger sound, while the unorthodox brass instrument adds a new dimension to the mix. Tenor Zoltan DiBartolo mixes operatic training with a natural theatricality and a pop sensibility - applying it to the most romantic and heart-breaking songs the world has ever known.Tango No. 9 has just completed their 5th recording whose Working Title is The Vocal Album. Tango No. 9 is: Catharine Clune - violin, Greg Stephens - trombone, Joshua Raoul Brody - piano, Zoltan diBartolo - vocals.

Catharine Clune, violinist and music director, woke from a dream in early 1998 knowing she wanted to start a tango group, and founded Tango No. 9. A ten-year veteran of Club Foot Orchestra, she now is one of the leaders of its off-shoot, the Nino Rota cover band Orchestra Nostalgico. She wrote and arranged a portion of the music recorded and performed by Club Foot for the 90′s remake of CBS Saturday cartoon Felix The Cat. Her soundtrack for the short film A Rat Fairy Tale won an award at the Short Attention Span Film Festival. In addition to performing and composing, she has recorded with free improv groups such as the Molecules, Speed the Parting Guest, Crawling with Tarts, and rock groups Steve Kirk Pop and Zircus.

Greg Stephens, trombonist and composer, has spent the last several years performing and recording with Tango No. 9, Ad Hoc Brass Band, Circus Bella All-Stars, Big Lou's Dance Party (formerly Polka Casserole), and Lord Loves A Working Man, and has written or arranged for most of them. He is occasionally seen with The Green Street Mortuary Band, and has also played with Extra Action Marching Band, The Klezmatics, Golem, Frank London, Kugelplex, Eric McFadden, and The Dirty Dozen Brass Band. In his spare time he is the musical director for the spring musicals at Archbishop Riordan High School in SF. Greg attended CSU Northridge, where he studied trombone with Bill Booth. He received his BA from UCSB, where he studied composition with Stephen Hartke. He founded 20th Century FORUM, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting Bay Area composers /new music performers. Past performance credits: Berkeley Opera, Berkeley Contemporary Opera, City Summer Opera, and Bella Musica.

Joshua Raoul Brody, pianist, spends most of his time accompanying improv groups (True Fiction Magazine, Bay Area Theatersports), actors (Josh Kornbluth, Merle Kessler), and musicians (Mr. Lucky, Orchestra Nostalgico). He is a sought after composer for film (the independent feature Suckerfish), video (MTV's Winter Steele), and multimedia (Sony's Tiny Tank). As an accompanist, Joshua has worked with comedians Lily Tomlin and Robin Williams, film legends from Philip Kaufman to Felix the Cat, singers Tom Waits, Sir Bob Geldof and Florence Henderson, rock stars Joe Satriani and Nina Hagen, and unlumpable phenomena like The Residents, the Ethel Merman Memorial Choir, and Those Darn Accordions!. Mr. Brody won a Bay Area Critics' Circle award for best score, (Rick & Ruby Show) several Cabaret Gold Awards, and in 1991 was awarded the Bay Guardian's first GOLDIE award. His many other accomplishments and name-drops are chronicled at www.jraoul.org.

Zoltan DiBartolo comes from a diverse vocal background that spans 25 years and includes classical, jazz, tango, salsa, cabaret, and vaudeville. DiBartolo is concurrently pursuing a career as an opera tenor; recent roles include Gastone in La Traviata (Virago Theater Co.) and Enrico Caruso in The Last Night of The Barbary Coast (Idora Park Theater Co.). In Summer 2012, he played Ferrando in Cosi Fan Tutti (Goat Hall Opera). He is actively involved in San Francisco's new Kurt Weill Project (goathall.org), and has performed with Tin Hat Trio, Freddi Price, Allison Lovejoy, Rebecca Mauleon, The SF Choral Society, UC Berkeley Chorus, UC Berkeley Chamber Chorus, Solano Chamber Society, UC Berkeley Summer Symphony, and Berkeley Opera.

Astor Piazzolla, Tango No. 9's first love, is single-handedly responsible for wrenching the tango out of the moribund 40s and 50s and plunging it kicking and screaming - and alive! -into the tumultuous 60s and 70s. To the traditional habañera rhythms he added classical composition techniques he had studied with legendary Parisian coach Nadia Boulanger, the jazz rhythms and improvisations he grew up with in NYC, and incongruous elements like odd meters and atonality to forge a synthesis that was a true innovation: tango nuevo.

Ticket prices. Union Sq. show FREE / Duende show $10 cover charge. Phone #: 415- 454- 5238. Tickets: (For 9:00 pm Duende show in Oakland) http://tangonumbernine-eorg.eventbrite.com/.

Artist Website: www.tango9.com.

Photo Credit: Kat Nyberg