A tango guitarist, dancer and engineer from Argentina, Guillermo García has been teaching tango in the San Francisco Bay Area since 2001 and is one of the pioneers of local live tango music. He has been a guest teacher at most of the local dance studios and milongas (tango dance parties) and his San Francisco weekly class has been running since 2007. In 2011 he was part of the dance cast in the show Tango Fatal, directed by Forever Tango lead dancer Jorge Torres. In 2018 Guillermo and his partner Hande Yildiz taught the beginner and intermediate tango program at Stanford University in the Spring Quarter, and two eight-week programs in Berkeley focused on the different rhythmic forms of Argentine Tango.
As a musician Guillermo started playing guitar at age ten, learning from tango guitarists in Argentina and later undergoing classical guitar training at the Conservatory of Bahía Blanca. In 1996 he settled in California and co-founded band Flor de Tango, with whom he performed for four years and recorded one of the first locally-produced tango albums at Stanford University. He then prompted the creation of Trio Garufa in 2001, with whom he has recorded three albums and performed extensively in the USA, Argentina, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Colombia and Canada. He also performs tango music as a solo guitarist and in collaboration with other musicians.
After becoming an electrical engineer in Argentina, Guillermo specialized in signal processing for music technology in France and California. He holds an MSEE from Université d’Orsay and a Ph.D. in EE from Stanford University.
Guillermo believes that everyone can dance tango and that most of us tend to encounter similar challenges along the learning curve. His teaching method is influenced by both his engineering and musical backgrounds, and is based on musicality, partner connection, technique and steps, historical context, and social etiquette at milongas.
