Ninth Annual Whale & Jazz Festival Arena Theater Festival Concert Tango with Trio Garufa and friends Arena Theater Main Street, Point Arena Saturday, April 23, 2011 8:00 p.m.

Trio Garufa is an international ensemble dedicated to performing authentic Argentine music. They have performed across Argentina, Canada and the US (including a recent performance in Chicago Symphony Hall).

Trio Garufa performs Classic Argentine Tangos from the golden era ('30s - '50s) as well as Argentine Folkloric Music (Chacarera, Zamba, Guarania, Gato, Chamamé) and modern tangos from Piazzolla as well as original compositions. The music is exciting and virtuosic and very danceable. The trio is the only Tango ensemble in the US to have performed extensively in the Milongas (Tango Dance Clubs) of Buenos Aires.

Trio Garufa is Sascha Jacobsen (Russia), acoustic bass; Guillermo García (Argentina), guitar; and Adrian Jost (Switzerland), bandoneón & bayan, plus fine guest musicians Mayumi Urgino, violin and Ara Anderson, trumpet. The Arena Theater dance floor, snack stand and bar will be open for this event. Tickets: $28 online & at local vendors ($3 off for Arena Theater members at vendors only); $30 at the door.

Arena Theater is a 1928-vintage vaudeville theater and film palace, restored in 1996 to an Art Deco style, state-of-the-art entertainment venue with generous support from local artisans and financial donations. The Arena Theater Association is an all-volunteer, community non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that maintains Arena Theater and brings live performances and artists to the stage of this Mendocino Coast venue.

Located on Main St. (Highway 1) in Point Arena - California's smallest city - the Arena Theater operates every day of the year. The anchor of the theater is the Arena Cinema, which shows first run movies and this year will be showing excellent jazz films on two separate evenings as part of the Whale & Jazz Festival.

For the last three years, Arena Theater has participated in Whale & Jazz Festivals with both concerts and films: In 2008: Arena Rhythm 'n Jazz: A Motown Jazz Soul Revue; 2009 Linda Tillery and the Cultural Heritage Choir; 2010: Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers. Besides Trio Garufa, Arena Theater is presenting two excellent Jazz Films (April 4 & 11) and Cloudfire as Arena Monday & Jazz, April 18.

Jazz Artists

Trio Garufa

Sascha Jacobsen (Russia), acoustic bass

Born into a musical family, going as far back as his great, great, great, great-grandfather, a bassist in the Moscow Opera, Jacobsen began playing bass at age 16. His mentors have been Michael and James Finley, John Brecher, Nico Abondolo, and Dennis Trembly, as well as Wolfgang Guttler and Shinji Eshima. He got his MA in Music at USC, and then went on to teach at Humboldt State University and served on the faculty at Laney College in Oakland and the Sequoia Chamber Music Festival.

Jacobsen has performed as principal bass with the Santa Cruz Symphony, and the American Musical Theatre in San Jose, and as a section member of the Monterey Symphony and the Sarasota Opera. His Jazz group, the Sascha Jacobsen Quintet, released its premier CD "Outer Sunset," which Double Bassist Magazine declared, "shines a light on Jazz that it hasn't basked in for years." He currently performs with Trio Garufa, an Argentine Tango group, and with the Musical Art Quintet, which features his original compositions.

Guillermo García (Argentina), guitar

Guillermo García was born in Bahia Blanca, a southern port of Argentina, where he grew up among tango, soccer, barbecues, military coups and numerous currency devaluations. Inexplicably attracted to the shape of the guitar, he started playing Argentine tango and folklore music at the age of 10, and classical guitar at age 15.

As a dancer, Guillermo learned Argentine tango from some of the major Buenos Aires masters of the salón, milonguero and nuevo styles. He teaches a weekly tango salón class in San Francisco, and has taught numerous musicality workshops for dancers. He has also hosted several workshops on the Tango Discovery method in the Bay Area.

As a musician, he co-founded and recorded with Trio Garufa ("Tango en el Mate" CD, 2004, "La Segunda Tradición" CD, 2008), as well as Flor de Tango ("Flor de Tango" CD, 2000). He currently teaches tango guitar and performs with Trio Garufa in San Francisco, sometimes touring Argentina and other parts of the USA.

Guillermo also specializes in music and audio technology. He holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University, with a dissertation on the restoration of old music recordings using digital audio processing. He previously obtained a Masters in audio signal processing from Université d'Orsay in Paris, and an Electrical Engineer degree from Universidad Nacional del Sur in Argentina. He worked as an audio engineer for IRCAM/Centre Pompidou in Paris, where he created the computer-processed castrato voice for the FARINELLI film (1995 Academy Award nominee, and winner of Cesar Award and Golden Globe award). In California, he developed audio technology for Gibson Guitar, Silicon Graphics and Creative Labs, and presently designs audio processing algorithms for BIAS.

Adrian Jost (Switzerland), Bandoneón & Bayan

Jost studied music as a young boy in the French Riviera and his native country, Switzerland. He won the gold medal of the Association of Accordionists at the age of 11 which led him to study the Bayan with composer Fritz Tschannen, Switzerland's "teacher of teachers," and later with world-class performer Stephane Chapuis. He received a BS degree in Yverdon, won the 1996 Landis & Gyr contest, and came to Chicago where he discovered Tango while pursuing a Master's in science and music technology at Northwestern University. The high-tech industry brought Adrian to the Silicon Valley where he co-founded Trio Garufa, a popular San Francisco based tango group that plays for dancers and concerts throughout the Bay Area as well as at various Tango festivals, including in Argentina. He is often in Buenos Aires to dance, play, repair his bandoneón or study with the great masters of Tango. His discography includes Tango en el Mate and La Segunda Tradición by Trio Garufa, and the just released album Revirado of Tango Pacifico, a five-piece tango group based in Portland, Oregon, specializing in the music of Astor Piazzolla.

Guest musicians

Mayumi Urgino, violin

Mayumi Urgino graduated with a music degree from Indiana University and is based in San Francisco, California. She plays fiddle with Devine's Jug Band, a group that brings listeners back to the days of Southern American blues and folk music, prevalent in the 1920s. They have performed at the Great American Music Hall, Freight & Salvage, the Louisville Jug Band Jubilee Festival and have made several television and radio show appearances, including NPR's "West Coast Live" and a TV spot in the NBC News.

She has also played with Toshio Hirano, a popular local Japanese country singer. Notable performances include the Mountain Winery in Saratoga, California and regular monthly shows at Amnesia and The Rite Spot Cafe in the Mission district of San Francisco. They were featured in a documentary called "Waiting for a Train," which was presented in numerous International Film festivals. She recently returned to San Francisco after spending 2010 in Buenos Aires, Argentina to study Argentine tango music, dance and culture and plays in "Quinteto del Bailongo" a talented group of Argentine tango musicians and dancers that bring the music of Astor Piazzolla to life.

Ara Anderson, trumpet

Ara Anderson is a trumpeter, bandleader, educator, and composer based in San Francisco. He has been performing, recording, and touring throughout the United States and Europe for the last 12 years with a wide range of musicians and groups: Tom Waits, Rupa & the April Fishes, Jolie Holland, Sean Hayes, Brett Dennen, DeVotchka, TV on the Radio, Todd Sickafoose, Tin Hat, Jonathan Richman, and OK Go.

His compositions have been featured in major motion pictures ("La Giusta Distanza" and "Loss of a Teardrop Diamond"), as well as circus and theater productions (including two New Pickle Circus shows). In 2007, Ara was picked as one of Downbeat magazine's 25 Trumpeters of the Future. Ara has also founded and led two original projects of his own: an 8-piece brass band called Boostamonte, and Iron & the Albatross, a chamber jazz ensemble that performed as part of the SF Jazz Festival in 2008. For the 2011 Festival, Anderson can also be heard as a duo with Adrian Jost on Easter Sunday at Ocean & Jazz.