Daniel Ruggiero’s Quarteto de Tango

Bandoneonista Daniel Ruggiero, together with three other leading musicians, José Luis Marina on violin, Marcos Rufo on contrabass and Matías López has formed the Tango Quartet to play at the Australian Tango Championships in April 2007.

Daniel Ruggiero

Began his studies on guitar at the National Music Academy has been studying and playing bandoneon since 1997. His first teacher was the Great Master, Pascual ‘Cholo’ Mamone. From 1998 to 2001 he studied at the Conservatorium of Popular Music in Avellaneda with Joaquim Amenabar, Walter Castro and Rodolfo Mederos.

During this time he played at the 2nd Buenos Aires Tango Festival with Abel Cordoba and in 2001 -2 in a duo with guitarist Claudio Pena at a tribute to Pugliese. Daniel has played with Masters such as Jorge Dragone, Fernando Marzán and Carlos Buono.

Daniel has played in the United States, Canada and Europe as well as in many of the festivals in South America. In 2003 he established his own quartet Quasimodo.

 

José Luis Marina

Violinist José Luis Marina was born in Buenos Aires in 1964 and began his musical education at the Instituto Weber at at the age of ten. At the same time he was singing in the Colon Theatre Children’s Choir and playing the guitar. He began studying violin when he was 18. 

As well as performing with many of the leading classical orchestras in Argentina, José has played tango at many of the well-known tango places in Buenos Aires including the Esquina Carlos Gardel , the Centro Cultural Borges and the Buenos Aires City Festival. José has also played with the Juan d’Arienzo Orchestra, Compania “Tango Imagen” and Sexteto Criollo and he has participated in recordings with Tango Emotion and Tango Sinfonico.

José teaches at the Rudolf Steiner college, the Conservatorio Pianissimo and the Atellier Musical as well as performing as the first violin Concertino with Orquesta Sinfónica de la P.F. de Argentina and first violin with the Cuarteto Júpiter and Tango Emotion.

 

Marcos Rufo
Marcos Rufo who plays contrabass in the Tango Quartet, began his studies at the National Conservatorium of Music in Buenos Aires in 1984. In 1987 he played in the National Radio Youth Orchestra and in 1988 joined the World Orchestra of Young Musicians touring Uruguay, Argentina, Belgium and Germany under the direction of Charles Dutoit.

Since 1990 he has played with many of the leading orchestras including the Latin American Youth Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra of the Library of the National Congress of Argentina, the Symphony Orchestra of San Luis and the Camerato Alberto Lysy of Gstaad, Switzerland.
In 1995 he joined the Sexteto Tango and since then has also played with a number of tango orchestras including the Quinteto Los Reyes, Amelita Baltar Quintet, the Daniel Binelli Quintet , the Ramiro Gallo Quintet and the Beba Pugliese Orchestra.

 

Matías López
Pianist Matías López began studying music at the age of six. He has studied and played with Master Rubén Aguilera, Miguel Angel Gillardi , José Carli, María Garay, Tamara Castro, Antonio Tarrragó Ros, Paz Martinez and León Gieco and many other leading musicians. In 2004 he performed with the Master Ernesto Franco Orchestra at the finals of the Buenos Aires Tango Festival.

From 2002 to 2004 Matias was the pianist and Musical Director of ‘Senor Tango” and travelled with the company to Brazil, Uruguay, the USA and Germany.
These days he is the pianist and Musical Director of the Julia Zenko and Che Tango where he shares the stage with Raúl Lavié and Hugo Marcel.