About us
‘Tango Aliado enchants the audience with it’s virtuoso, rhythmical music’
‘The quartet takes you on a wonderful journey along the different facets of the tango’
‘The audience loved the rich melodies performed by the great musicians’
Tango Aliado wants to draw it’s audience into the colorful world of the Argentine tango. This Amsterdam based quartet has been giving concerts at home and abroad for many years and their performances are always received with great enthusiasm. In 2019, the quartet released it’s second CD called El Compás with new works by Wantenaar and Cosentino and with older tango’s from the early twentieth century. Tango Aliado gives a personal flavour to the tango music by performing it’s own unique arrangements. The enthusiastic professional musicians of Tango Aliado are Françoise van Varsseveld (violin), Mariken Zandvliet (piano), Lucas Stam (cello) and Gert Wantenaar (bandoneon).
Close your eyes and let yourself be swept away by the seductive sounds of the tango! quartet takes you on a wonderful journey along the different facets of the tango
Françoise van Varsseveld
violin
She was leader of the Rotterdam Young Philharmonic Orchestra and the Utrecht String Orchestra and concertmaster of the VU chamber orchestra.
She played in various classical orchestra’s (Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Dutch Chamber Orchestra, Ballet Orchestra, Noord Nederlands Orkest, Chineke Orchestra) and in light music ensembles and theater projects (the Metropole Orchestra, Herbert Grönemeyer, Stella Den Haag, Soldaat van Oranje). She discovered a love of tango music during her graduation year and with Gert Wantenaar and Mariken Zandvliet she performed two works by Astor Piazzolla for her final exam. This inspired her to further explore the world of Argentine tango music and later she found Tango Aliado.
Gert Wantenaar
bandoneon
Mariken Zandvliet
piano
Lucas Stam
cello
Lucas has played the cello since the age of six. After studying classical cello at the Rotterdam Conservatory he made several tours with german rockstar Herbert Grönemeyer, released a world music album with his own compositions together with vocalist Wieke Garcia and formed part of ensemble Tango Aliado. He worked with electronic music composer Pieter Nooten, with whom he performed at the World Press Award ceremony 2014 at Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ. Together with Klaas Berings from Freshbeat Studios he regularly composes music (commercials and documentaries) and recorded with pianists Daan Herweg en Mike del Ferro. He also performs with Indian vocalist Sandhya Sanjana (Halfway to India) and pianist Asli Boz.
From 2016 onwards he started studying North Indian classical music on his cello. In Mumbai, India he studied for several months under Dhruba Ghosh (sarangi) and took tabla lessons from Vaibhav Kadam (tabla). In Netherlands he took lessons from Lenneke van Stalen (violin) and Heiko Dijker (tabla). Currently he is studying dhrupad, one of the oldest forms of Indian classical music, under vocalist Marianne Svasek and followed workshops of vocalist Nirmalya Dey.