Biography

Praised for her “soulful bandoneón” (Washington Classical Review), Heyni Solera is a sought after bandoneonist in Washington, D.C.

Heyni has enjoyed a career in the US and abroad performing in Argentina, Canada and Australia and collaborating with prominent tango artists such as Ramiro Boero, Julian Peralta, Pablo Jaurena, Santiago Segret, Pedro Giraudo and many more. In 2019, Heyni was a member of the Argentine tango orchestra schools La Orquesta de Tango de la Una and the Conservatorio Superior de “Manuel de Falla”, where she had the opportunity to perform in the prestigious Centro Cultural Kirchner.

Heyni is part of the cello/bandoneon duo, Arco & Aire, with cellist Maxfield Wollam-Fisher. Their arrangement of “La Bordona” won Best Latin Song for the 2022 Wammie awards, which can be found in their EP Overture. This past July, Arco & Aire recorded their first full album of new contemporary tango music, which will be released in 2023. Heyni is also the other half of the Avalos-Solera Bandoneon Duo. In April of 2022, they released the album, Bach en Bandoneon, and this past summer presented the album on their first United States tour. Heyni is the bandoneonist of Las Almas, an ensemble which focuses on female tango musicians in a typically male dominated genre, and has performed several times at the San Francisco International Arts Festival.

As a scholar, Heyni received her Masters of Music in Ethnomusicology at the University of Maryland, College Park. She has developed the lectures A GPS for Tango Listening: What Makes Tango a Tango? and Today’s Woman in Tango: Carving Out Spaces amongst others. These lectures have been extensively presented throughout the United States and Canada for public audiences and academics alike.

Past projects include playing in the orchestra of the highly praised IN Series production of Le Cabaret de Carmen at Source Theatre in Washington, D.C. and at Baltimore Theatre Project in Baltimore, Maryland. In April of 2022, Heyni had her Kennedy Center debut with the Latin-Grammy nominated PanAmerican Symphony Orchestra, and has performed with the ensemble at the Argentine Embassy of Washington, DC. She also creates various content such as “Today’s Tango with Heyni”, a mini-series that features today’s contemporary tango musicians throughout the world, and “Discovering Troilo,” a mini-series that delves into the iconic style of Anibal Troilo’s tango orchestra.