Leonardo & Olga Suarez Paz
CUARTETANGO Music & Dance Company
in Romance de Tango
Leonardo & Olga Suarez Paz
CUARTETANGO Music & Dance Company
Leonardo & Olga Suarez Paz
CUARTETANGO Music & Dance Company
in Romance de Tango
Leonardo & Olga Suarez Paz are multitalented tango artists. They direct tango productions which include the Latin GRAMMY-Award nominated Cuartetango String Quartet, Cuartetango Music & Dance, Romance de Tango and Masters of Nuevo Tango. Their company has appeared on many stages including the main stage of the Teatro Colon Opera House for a Nationally Televised event, Teatro Pte. Alvear, the Buenos Aires Tango Festival, Washington Square Park Music Festival, the Lincoln Center in New York and many others and has been featured on television, in programs such as PBS WHYY “On Canvas,” the EMMY award winning show “Rhythm and Roots,” on Ebru TV and live at the XIII Latin GRAMMY-Awards Ceremony.
Leonardo Suarez Paz is a 4th generation tango artist, billed by the press as “tango royalty” (Erie Times-News). Born into a famous tango family, with a last name “of the best tango legacy” (Diario Critica de la Argentina, J. Lanata) he is known for his uncommon talent as a singer, a career which he began at the age of six, as a tango dancer and an artist who “possesses a unique spirit and is a virtuoso extraordinaire on the violin” (Wynton Marsalis, Artistic Director Jazz at Lincoln Center, New York).
Leonardo began dancing as a teenager. He frequented milongas and studied with maestros Juan Carlos Copes and Miguel Angel Zotto, before taking his dancing to the stage. His style reflects the elegant, smooth and grounded salon style coupled with strength, presence and innate musicality. His artistic qualities and unique talents made him the only tango artist to star as violinist and dancer in the iconic shows of Mariano Mores and Miguel Angel Zotto, with which he traveled throughout France, Italy, Spain, England, Greece, Japan, Mexico and the United States. Leonardo’s authentic approach has earned him the “Pa’ que bailen los muchachos” Buenos Aires award of the milongueros in 1994 and 1996.
Leonardo Suarez Paz has worked at the Teatro Colon, after becoming the youngest member of the Orchesta Estable of this famous Opera House. He has appeared in five Broadway productions, starring as a soloist in Tango Argentino and Forever Tango and has performed in the world’s top venues and productions including The Mariano Mores Show, TangoX2, Perfumes de Tango, where he danced and played the violin; Ballet Argentino of Julio Bocca, with Savion Glover (as concertmaster for the show ‘Classical Savion’), at the Teatro Colon Opera House in Buenos Aires with Cuartetango, Carnegie Hall in New York and in many other venues throughout the world.
In 2007 in a unanimous vote of the Directive Council, Leonardo was appointed Académico Correspondiente or Academic Representative for the US from the Academia Nacional del Tango, a National Academic institution of the Ministry of Education and the Secretariat of National Culture of Argentina and as such he conducts lectures and courses. He works on traditional and innovative projects with world’s top artists such as Wynton Marsalis and his Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, for whom he was commissioned to write a special arrangement and guitarist Jim Hall, who admires his “creativity in crossing the borders and combining tango and jazz” (Jim Hall Interview, Cuartetango in Birdland).
Leonardo is accompanied by his partner and wife Olga Suarez Paz. Trained in classical dance, theater and music, she holds a BA in Performing Arts and Anthropology. She studied and performed with the Ballet Chicago Studio Company and participated in residencies with modern companies such as X-sight and master classes and seminars with Paul Taylor Co., Ririe-Woodbury, Argentina’s premier contemporary choreographer Laura Roatta and in New York’s Martha Graham School of Contemporary dance. An emerging talent of tango, Olga made her tango debut touring with Andrea Misse’s company, Tangodanza. She has danced with the Argentine vocal group Opus Cuatro and was a cast member of the show at the historical Café de Los Angelitos in Buenos Aires. Olga has performed in shows, exhibitions and events in Argentina, United States and Canada, in many venues including the Lincoln Center in New York city where she has appeared three times, dancing with Leonardo Suarez Paz. She has danced along side other exceptional artists such as Junior Cervila and Armando Orzuza. She has sang, accompanied by tango’s renowned artists such as her husband, Leonardo Suarez Paz, Fernando Suarez Paz, Hector Del Curto and Octavio Brunetti. In 2010 she was praised by critics for the “high quality” of her dancing and “stunning vocal performance” (Mike Telin, Cleveland Classical) during the 2010-11 tour of Romance de Tango. Leonardo and Olga have recently finished work on a documentary film in Buenos Aires, dedicated to the music of the award-winning composer Carlos Franzetti, where Leonardo was featured as a violin soloist and Leonardo & Olga were featured dancing tango.
Leonardo Suarez Paz, assisted by Olga Suarez Paz is a frequent guest lecturer at the Academia Nacional del Tango. They make numerous radio appearances throughout the year on radio stations dedicated to tango such as La 2x4, Radio Splendid and National Radio Stations such as La Continental, on the program La Mañana with Victor Hugo Morales. Their teaching experience in the US includes workshops and master classes in both music and dace in Universities such as Grand Valley University, Northeastern University, McNeese University, Lincoln University, Carleton University, San Francisco Conservatory of Music among others, numerous milongas in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles as well as milongas and studios such as New York’s Sandra Cameron and Dance Sport. “Leonardo has such an amazing professional legacy and authenticity,” and coupled with Olga “they bring us an exceptional live sexy performance” (The Patriot News, Teri Guerrisi, director of the HACC Performing Arts Series in an interview by Ellen Hughes Jan 28, 2010)