On July 25, the Hopkins Center for the Arts closed out its Summer Concert Series with an outdoor performance by the Pedro Giraudo Quartet — a New York City-based ensemble that fuses Argentine tango with jazz and classical tones.
The quartet includes bassist and composer Pedro Giraudo, violinist Nicolás Danielson, bandoneón player Javier Sánchez and pianist Emiliano Messiez. More than 40 students, faculty and community members gathered on the Green to hear the third and final concert of the series. While some sat on blankets and in lawn chairs, others rose to their feet and danced with loved ones to watch the performance — which also included a company of professional tango performers blazing across the stage.
Spanish professor Noelia Sol Cirnigliaro, who played a large role in organizing the event, highlighted the community aspect of tango.
“When [people] are on the Green on a Thursday evening with beautiful music surrounding them, they are embodying the idea of community,” she said. “We all come together communally and we share the experience of hearing in unison and feeling similar things at the same time. Our isolated ways of being don’t allow for these kinds of experiences often.”
Hop academic programming curator Samantha Lazar said the event brought Dartmouth together with the wider Upper Valley community.
“Our mission is to bring the artists not just to campus and the academic world, but also to the broader public,” she said.
In addition to performing in the Summer Concert Series, the quartet — which arrived in Hanover on Monday — also participated in a week-long residency in collaboration with the Spanish and Portuguese department.
Cirnigliaro has played a large role in bringing a series of live Argentine tango performances to campus since 2019.
“It’s one thing to listen or imagine those cultural elements as you listen, and another thing to interact with musicians and have them explain that live to you,” Cirnigliaro said. “When Pedro and his musicians were here, they were able to show us those cultural concepts and other Argentine genres.”
Cirnigliaro said she teaches “Tango Argentino: Music, Dance, Poetry, Community,” which worked alongside the quartet in various workshops and classes throughout the week. Beyond their public concert, the quartet and dancers performed with students in classrooms and residence halls. The quartet also attended collaborative community events with organizations such as Dancing With Parkinson’s, a nonprofit organization that creates opportunities for movement to slow the degenerative effects of Parkinson’s disease.
Connor Killilea ’26, a student in Cirnigliaro’s class, said he embraced the opportunity to experience tango with local community members.
“It’s so hard to escape the Dartmouth bubble,” he said. “It was really cool to learn more about the seniors while talking with them. When they heard the musicians live for the first time, you could just see their faces light up.”
Giraudo’s quartet often performs music that “transcends a single genre.”
“Influences are funny,” Giraudo said. “Some of them you can control, but there are others that you might write in without realizing.”
The Pedro Giraudo Quartet has visited Dartmouth three times with the goal of fostering cultural connection rather than simply playing their music. Though the quartet’s residencies are mostly focused on education, inspiration struck Giraudo in 2021 and led to the creation of an original tango piece: “Dartmouth.” The piece has a “light melody” that grows more “somber” as it goes on.
“I was walking down the street,” Giraudo said. “I think I had to feed a [parking meter], and then suddenly this little motif comes to me. … I recognize immediately that it’s a powerful one.”
Giraudo’s tango blends elegantly with European classical styles and swift American jazz, as well as other Latin American styles. But the motif—or musical fragment— that“Dartmouth” began from was distinctly traditional compared to his fusion pieces, likely a product of the many pieces of traditional tango he shared with students throughout his week.
“I recorded the melody I heard on my phone,” he said.
Later, the piece took a different shape as he composed in New York.
“Slower, less rhythmic and more thoughtful,” Giraudo said. “It’s one of the pieces I’ve written and liked the most.”
Despite being born in Argentina, Giraudo said he was not exposed to tango until he moved to New York to study jazz as a bassist.
“Tango was popular among the generation of my grandparents,” he said. “Rapidly, I was playing with the really excellent tango players in New York, and I started to fall in love with it deeply.”
Giraudo was able to share his love of tango with people on the Green. Lazar said tango created a scene where people opened themselves up to movement and freedom.
“An acquaintance of mine and her husband are tango dancers, and they went to the dance floor on the Green and started to dance,” Lazar said. “Later, she admitted to me that they hadn’t danced in public like that in 10 years. The power of having an experience like this on the Green — it’s tangible in the crowd.”
