Da Capo Tango Orchestra plays classic tangos selected and arranged by Maxfield Wollam-Fisher for warm sound, high energy, deep connection, and ultimate dancability. The members of the ensemble including Maxfield on cello, Brett Lemley and Heyni Solera on bandoneon, and Valerie Higgs on Piano, have studied and performed with the leading tango musicians of the modern era in a lineage straight back t
o the masters of the golden age. The sound is warm, the energy is high, and the musical connection is deep. The group’s members are musicians and dancers who, between them, have performed and studied around the world with such musicians as Julian Peralta, Victor Lavallén, Horacio Cabarcos, Pablo Aslan, Ramiro Gallo, Julian Hasse, Hector del Curto, Pablo Ziegler, Pedro Giraudo, Santiago Segret, Pablo Estigarribia, Per Arne Glorvigen, Kory Ireland, and Cuarteto Tanguero to name a few. Maxfield Wollam-Fisher holds performance degrees from Indiana University and the University of Wisconsin and he has studied motion and body awareness through the Feldenkrais Method and contemporary choreography and dance. Maxfield began playing and dancing Argentine tango in 2010 and his experiences and approach to the music and motion of the art form have always been intertwined. His arrangements come with a dancer’s perspective and are well received both in milongas and concert halls. Maxfield's interest in the connection between sound and physicality led to the creation of the Mad City Live Tango Festival in 2014 in collaboration with Homer and Cristina Ladas and Cuarteto Tanguero which uniquely featured live music in every dance workshop. Since then he has been a director of the Tanguero Workshop in Indiana which brings top tango musicians together with students from around the world. Maxfield works to promote collaboration between artists across the disciplines of tango in order to raise the collective knowledge, access, and level of tango music and deepen our connections with each other and the global community. Brett Lemley has been a professional musician for three decades, beginning in 1986 with his first performances as a trumpeter. His whole career has been spent searching out new experiences and modes of expression. After beginning to dance tango in 2007, Brett took direction of the Tango Mercurio Community Orchestra in 2010 and started to play bandoneon in the winter of 2012. His mission is to bring the elegance, artistry, and sense of play of live tango music to the D.C. area, and to encourage dancers to get to know this incredible music better, and elevate their dance. Heyni Solera finished her BA in Music from Washington Adventist University in 2006 and has been playing piano and bandoneón with the Tango Mercurio Orchestra since 2012. She began playing the bandoneón in 2015, and currently studies with Santiago Segret. She will begin a graduate degree in ethnomusicology at University of Maryland this coming September. Professionally, Heyni works as a nurse anesthetist at Georgetown University and is an accomplished social dancer. A native of South Jersey, Valerie has musically directed/conducted/accompanied various theater productions in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, South Jersey, and the DC Metro area. She was nominated for a Washington Area Theatre Community Honors (WATCH) award for “Outstanding Musical Direction” for Kensington Arts Theatre's production of Jekyll & Hyde in 2011. She is currently Music Director for Ovations Theatre's production of Jason Robert Brown's Parade, and annually accompanies local high school students for the Young Artists Competition of Gaithersburg. Valerie has been the pianist for the Tango Mercurio Community Orchestra for several years and performed at the Tanguero Workshop in Indiana in 2017. When the universe smiles, Da Capo is joined by singer Stratos Achlatis from New York. Stratos studied vocal performance at the Institute of Vocal Arts and Research under the supervision of the renowned baritone Spyros Sakkas. In 2008 he moved to Munich to study Art Song and Oratorium with German Bass Hartmut Elbert and since 2010 with the American Bass-Baritone Peter Ludwig. He has performed for the Contemporary Opera of Athens, for the Theater and in numerous concerts in Europe and the US. Stratos was the founder of the children’s theatrical company “Paigniodos” and has recorded various songbooks for kids. In 2010 he moved to New York where he founded his tango band Tango Meditarraneo and lately Los Peores del Tango and has collaborated with various artists as Emilio Solla, Octavio Brunetti, Maurizio Najt, Rodolfo Zanetti, Federico Diaz, Machico Ozawa, Costas Baltazanis, Petros Klampanis, Katerina Foteinaki and many more.
