Performances at the Barnes Foundation always involve something special. In 2017, Andres & Meredith performed Debussy’s “Clair de Lune,” played live by pianist Emiliano Messiez. In 2018, they performed the premiere of an homage to Debussy, composed by Emiliano Messiez, played by the composer and Nastasja Vojnovic, violin.

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and based in NYC, pianist/composer Emiliano Messiez has become one of the most in-demand tango pianists in the world. He has played some of the most notable music venues in the United States, including Lincoln Center, and performed with some of the world’s top musicians, such as Paquito de Rivera, Dino Saluzzi, and Concha Buika. With Jose Luis Infantino, he recorded the album, “Silencio,” in 2004, which received an UNESCO Prize for music.

With a versatile and unique style, Emiliano performs in a wide range of genres from classical music and jazz, to rock and Latin American rhythms. In the worldwide tango community, Emiliano has become known as one of the most brilliant tango pianists of our time. His playing is absolutely infectious and highly danceable. Whether Emiliano is performing as a soloist, in small group formations (duo / trio / quartet), or directing his entire orchestra, the Tipica Messiez, you can’t sit down when Emiliano is playing.

Emiliano graduated from the National University of the Arts in Buenos Aires. He later joined the faculty there, teaching in the Department of Composition. He also graduated from Berklee College of Music’s Escuela de Music Contemporánea in Buenos Aires.

Emiliano is the pianist for the hit show, “Forever Tango,” which has been seen by over eight million people worlwide, including on Broadway and the West End in London. He performs “Tango Dueling Pianos,” a unique concept featuring two tango pianists, with Latin-Grammy nominee Pablo Estigarribia.

In 2020, Emiliano released a new CD with the Underground Tango Ensemble, “El Charrúa,” a tribute dedicated to his friend, Latin Grammy winner bandoneonist Raúl Jaurena.

A prolific composer, Emiliano wrote the music for “The Guava Tree” and “Bordello”, an in-development musical based in 1920’s Buenos Aires. He is currently at work on a new musical for Creede Repertory Theater in Colorado.

For more information, please visit www.emilianomessiez.com.

Born and raised in Buenos Aires, Andres Amarilla began dancing tango in 1987 at age 11. While still a child, he studied with and performed in the dance companies of three of the greatest tangueros of all time: Gustavo Naveira, Juan Carlos Copes, and Rodolfo Dinzel. After 10 years of intensive immersion in the music, culture and movement of traditional Argentine Tango, Andres became part of a small group of young people seeking to push the limits of the traditional art form. Together, they analyzed and codified the movements, sequences and rules of traditional tango and began to play with the “grammar” of the tango language, thereby developing uncounted new sequences of movements, and giving birth to a new means of teaching, dancing and thinking about tango. This way of analyzing tango has become the basis of most good tango pedagogy in the world today.

A greatly sought-after teacher, Andres has taught in more than 70 cities worldwide, including Istanbul, Beirut, Warsaw, Gdansk, Moscow, Sydney, Brisbane, Belo Horizonte, Buenos Aires, San Francisco, Vancouver, Montreal, and New York, among many others. In 2008, Andres and his dance partner, Meredith Klein, founded the Philadelphia Argentine Tango School. Until Covid-19, Andres split his year between Philadelphia and traveling to teach in other parts of the world. Now, he has taken on an important new role as full-time steward of Sheldon the Tango Cat. Meow!

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Meredith Klein has been dancing tango for 22 years, including three years spent living in Buenos Aires. For the past 13 years, she has run the Philadelphia Argentine Tango School. Over the past three years, the school has become one of the most prolific presenters of live tango music in the United States.

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