Tango | New York, NY
Latin GRAMMY Award winner bassist and composer Pedro Giraudo is among the most compelling tango artists today. After two decades performing with the most important interpreters of tango, Pedro Giraudo debuted his own Tango Orchestra at Lincoln Center’s Midsummer Night Swing in July 2015 and since then has become an active cultural ambassador of this beautiful and passionate music of his native Argentina.
In 2018 his album ‘Vigor Tanguero’ won a Latin GRAMMY award for ‘Best Tango Album’. In 2014 Ruben Blades’ CD “Tangos” on which he recorded bass won two Grammys Awards (Best Tango Album & Best Latin Pop). Pedro Giraudo has collaborated with Pablo Ziegler, Paquito D’Rivera, and Dizzy Gillespie’s protégé William Cepeda, as well as ‘Tango meets Jazz’ guests: Branford Marsalis, Kenny Garret, Regina Carter, Nestor Torres, Miguel Zenon among many others. Pedro Giraudo has also collaborated as a performer and arranger for one of New York’s most respected institutions: The New York Philharmonic. He has also been the musical director of Tango for All’s ‘Blind’, Mariela Franganillo Company’s “Tango Connection” and “Tango Recuerdo” and performed with U.S.’s most prominent tango ensembles including ‘Forever Tango’, Hector Del Curto’s ‘Eternal Tango’ and Daniel Binelli’s ‘Tango Metropolis’. He has participated in numerous jazz and music festivals throughout North America, Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia, and performed in venues such as The Blue Note (Japan & USA), Birdland (Austria), London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, Jazz Festival Royale in Thailand, Kennedy Center (Washington DC), Iridium, Jazz Standard, Blue Note, Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall (NYC).
As a composer and arranger, Giraudo leads his own jazz and tango ensembles and has been hailed by critics as one of the most creative and daring bandleaders on the scene today. His compositions combine his love of classical forms, Argentine tango and folk music, and the spontaneity of jazz improvisation. The band, which boasts some of New York’s finest musicians, has performed regularly in the most prestigious jazz clubs in the New York City area, including the Jazz Standard, Birdland, The Jazz Gallery, Blue Note, Joe’s Pub, as well as abroad. John Murph of Downbeat described Giraudo’s music as “an opulent listening experience of modern, orchestral jazz, brimming with passionate improvisations, deliberate contrapuntal melodies, and plush harmonies.