Leonardo Suarez-Paz's PIAZZOLLA100: El Nuevo Tango

Artistic Director, violinist, vocalist, composer & tango dancer

Argentine-born multidisciplinary artist, Leonardo is a  2xLatin GRAMMY award-nominated musician & composer who was mentored by Astor Piazzolla. A 4th generation tanguero, his was a violin soloist for Horacio Salgan, Mariano Mores, Atilio Stampone & Broadways's Forever Tango & Tango Argentino and a tango dancer for  Mariano Mores, Tangox2 & Perfumes de Tango. As a classical and jazz artist he was a member of Teatro Colon Orquesta Estable,  performed with Placido Domingo, NY City Opera and arranged for JALC Orquestra with Wynton Marsalis.

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Tenor Saxophone 

Patience Higgins is a New York based jazz saxophonist, flutist and multi-reed musician who has a 20 year working relationship with Artistic Director Leonardo Suarez Paz both as his jazz teacher and colleague. Patience represents an important aspect of the jazz influence in Nuevo Tango and his inclusion also pays homage to Piazzolla’s collaboration with Gerry Mulligan. Patience was featured on the double Grammy winning recording Dee Dee Bridgewater's Dear Ella, played with the Duke Ellington Orchestra, Barry Harris, Archie Shepp, Jimmy Scott, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, and the Sugar Hill Jazz Quartet.

​Patience is a Broadway musician, educator and has toured with Count Basie and Duke Ellington Orchestra, of which he was a member for over 20 years, funder the direction of Mercer Ellington and Paul Ellington. His touring and recording credits include Frank Foster, Rodney Kendrick, Yoko Ono, Cleo Laine, Vanessa Rubin, The Pointer Sisters, Don Byron, Hamiett Bluiett, The Boys Choir of Harlem, Nicolas Payton, David Murray, Aretha Franklin, Savion Glover, Ray Charles, Lionel Hampton, Sam Rivers, Charles Tolliver, Bobby Watson & Tailor Made, Wilson Pickett and Stevie Wonder. His Broadway credits include Avenue Q, Dreamgirls, The Wiz, Ain't Misbhevin', Black & Blue among others.

Bandoneon

​A native of Argentina, Rodolfo Zanetti is a Latin GRAMMY-winning artists who studied with Jorge Puebla Hilario and Alberto Iribarne on bandoneon, continuing his studies in piano with masters Monica Rizzo and Roberto Urbay at the Faculty of Arts of the National University of Cuyo, Mendoza, Argentina. He has performed with Leonardo Suarez Paz's Cuartetango string quartet,  El Nuevo Tango and Symphonic Tango programs. 

​In the United States, Zanetti has performed as soloist at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and Carnegie Hall. He has been featured as a bandoneon soloist with the Choir of the National University of Cuyo (U.N.C. - Mendoza), Coro de Jóvenes de la Universidad Nacional de Cuyo and the Fiesta Nacional de la Vendimia. 

Piano / Keyboard

Latin GRAMMY winner and six-time GRAMMY nominee, Argentine-born composer Emilio Solla got his degree in Classical Piano at the National Conservatory of Music in Buenos Aires and his MA in Jazz Composition at the Aaron Copland School of Music in New York. His first project, Apertura, was praised by Astor Piazzolla as one of the most interesting new sounds in the Buenos Aires scene in 1986. Today, with fifteen albums as bandleader and more than fifty as arranger/producer, he is regarded by peers and critics as one of the most outstanding and unique composers in the Tango-Jazz field, a musical language that blends Argentine tango and folk with jazz and other contemporary music styles. He has performed all around Europe, Japan, the US, and Latin America to rave reviews in many of the most important jazz venues and festivals, such as Bimhuis, Lincoln Center, Marciac, Blue Note, Fasching, and more.