Tango and Beyond

Orquesta Típica Tarareando presents a range of classic and contemporary compositions, illustrating the evolution and breadth of tango from its golden age to the present day. The performance will also mark the official release of an EP the group has been working on.

Orquesta Típica Tarareando

Orquesta Típica Tarareando is a San Francisco Bay Area ensemble specializing in authentic Argentine Tango. The orchestra's repertoire includes traditional Golden Age tangos, original arrangements of classics, and modern compositions.

United by a shared passion for tango, musicians bring a wealth of experience from diverse musical backgrounds. Individually and as an ensemble, the members have studied with, performed alongside, and accompanied many of today's leading tango artists.

Showcasing traditional and contemporary works, the group maintains a vibrant schedule of concerts and social dances. The 2025 season featured appearances at top Bay Area dance events, a milonga at Union Square, concerts at the Palo Alto JCC and Gradus ad Parnassum Music Academy, and a collaboration with the First Presbyterian San Anselmo choir to perform Martín Palmeri’s Misatango.

Artist Biographies

Keiko Cadby

A mixed native to Northern California and Southern Japan, Keiko Cadby has been playing violin since the age of 5, and graduated from the Suzuki method program before studying with Jeremy Constant. Her childhood accolades include the Mary Paige Phillips Award and the Command Performance Award from California Music Educator's Association of the Bay Area, and placed first in competitions including the Yen Liang Young Artist Competition in Walnut Creek, the Ruth Finley Person Etude Music Club, and Santa Rosa Youth Orchestra Concerto Competitions in Northern California. She continued her education with Lorenz Gamma and Movses Pogossian at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, where she was also first introduced to Argentine tango through the music chair and cello professor Antonio Lysy (son of the legendary Argentine violinist Alberto Lysy). Later, she participated in the Stowe Tango Music Festival and studied with renowned Tango artists such as Julio Pane, Nicolas Ledesma, and more.

Naomi Kawabata

Naomi began playing the violin at a very young age, but it wasn't until 2016, when she joined the La Orquesta Fusion Tango group, that she discovered the world of tango music. Since then, she has continued to deepen her study of tango music, performing with Orquesta Típica Tarareando.

Sarah Wu

A Bay Area native, Sarah Wu started violin studies with San Mateo Suzuki teacher Marjorie Lin at age 11 and has played ever since. She studied psychology and music at Reed College in Portland, where she was the concertmaster of the Reed College Orchestra and a member of multiple chamber ensembles. Sarah earned 2nd place in the 2022 OR-ASTA Solo Competition (Senior division) for her performance of The Lark Ascending and performed the piece as a soloist with the Reed College Orchestra. Supported by the Rothchild and Kahan Fellowships, Sarah had the opportunity to study with violinists Paloma Griffin-Hébert and Inés Voglar-Belgique; other prominent musical mentors in Oregon included Monica Ohuchi, Kenji Bunch, and Giancarlo Castro D'Addona.

Reed was also where Sarah was introduced to Argentine tango. Inspired from playing a Piazzolla piano trio, Sarah participated in Tango for Musicians at Reed College, where she learned tango violin techniques and performance practice from Guillermo Rubino. In Portland she performed in the tango quintet Ciao Felicia and since returning to the Bay Area she has performed with Orquesta Típica Tarareando. Sarah is also a member of Peninsula Symphony and plays a variety of genres (including tango!) for their music outreach events at Bay Area school assemblies.

Angela Lee

Angela Lee is a graduate of The Juilliard School and Yale School of Music. Since making her Carnegie Hall debut in 1994, she has concertized throughout Europe, Asia, and North America. She is a founding member of The Lee Trio, which has commissioned and premiered works of numerous living composers. Using music to foster peace and goodwill, she has made humanitarian trips to the Republic of the Philippines and the former Yugoslavia. While on a U.N.-sanctioned tour of six war-torn cities throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina, she performed for NATO troops and displaced civilians. In addition to coaching chamber music at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Ms. Lee serves on the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra Alumni Association Leadership Council and on the Board of Directors of The Resonance Project (https://music-resonance.org/), which promotes live music in mediation settings and international conflict resolution.

Crystie Shum

Born in Hong Kong, Crystie began piano lessons at four, and studied for eight years. After falling in love with Argentine tango, she has received coaching from maestros such as Hector Del Curto, Pablo Estigarribia, Gustavo Casenave, Nicolas Ledesma, Adrian Enriquez, Cesar Salgan, etc. She performed at the Stowe Tango Music Festival in 2022 and 2023 with special guests, Victor Lavallen and Guillermo Rubino. She also performed in Buenos Aires, Tijuana, and multiple cities in Japan. She is actively performing in the following groups: Alex Roitman Tango Ensemble based in Florida, Orquesta Tipica Tarareando based in the San Francisco Bay Area, and Los Angeles del Tango based in Los Angeles. She also started her own group, Cristal in 2025. Besides music, Crystie is a social worker with two dogs, a parrot, a tortoise, and an iguana.

Ken Miller

Ken Miller is a versatile double-bass player who works in many genres. He played with the SF Symphony, SF Opera, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestras, and The Skywalker Symphony Orchestra. In addition, he is active on the San Francisco Jazz scene, having performed with many top level players including Branford Marsalis, Bruce Forman, Mark Levine, and Mimi Fox.

Svetlana Shnitser

Svetlana Shnitser has been playing piano since she was 5 years old and has always enjoyed playing by the ear and improvising. She’s been a tanguera for almost 20 years, and recently has taken on playing tango in addition to dancing. She has been studying tango piano with Pablo Estigarribia from Buenos Aires and has attended Tango Music Institute at Reed College and Tanguero Workshop at Urbana-Champaign led by musicians from Argentina.

Alexander Zeyliger

Having grown up listening to records from the 1930s and '40s and singing them back, he studied voice, piano, and clarinet at a music school in Leningrad, USSR. While pursuing a Physics degree at Caltech, he never missed a quarter of Caltech Glee Club and Chamber Singers. He studied classical singing with Frieda Bernstein and Eugene Brancoveanu. After discovering Argentine tango as a social dance many years ago, it was only a matter of time before he was drawn into singing tangos and playing the bandoneón, an instrument of German origin that found its way to Argentina to become the soul of tango music. Alexander attended Tango Music Institute at Reed College as vocalist, bandoneón player, and arranger, and participated in the Stowe Tango Music Festival.