The Timetable:

The Sessions

🔸INSTRUMENT ASSESSMENT (2 hours in total)

Learn to make minor repairs by yourself! Come with your instrument and Rocco will help you to fix it.

🔸ROCCO'S Beginners level sessions (2hours in total)

The Bandoneon days welcome beginners! In these workshops, Rocco will share some useful tips and tricks to set you off on your journey with this wonderful instrument. He will give you valuable advice on posture and hand position, as well as how to use the valve effectively. He may also use this time to help you find your way through the easy version of the Vals score before the rest of the group arrives.

🔸ROCCO'S Whole Group sessions  (9 hours in total)

The time in Rocco's workskhops will be divided between working with leadsheets and studying an arrangement in 4 parts (with easy versions for beginners). Sheet music will be available in advance for all workshops.

🔸HIGHER LEVEL ENSEMBLE, with  Ruth (2 hours in total)

In this workshop, we will study the first movement of the Art of the Fugue, by J.S. Bach. For this workshop, it is expected that the participants can solidly play their parts. Play-along tracks to learn your parts will be available in advance.

In the workshop, we will work with phrasing, articulation and dynamics to bring out the beauty of this complex piece of music.

🔸SMALL GROUP PLAY (6 hours in total)

The timetable has slots dedicated to playing in smaller groups.  These groups are peer-led and optional. Some material will be made  available in advance from the archive, or you can bring your own pieces to suggest to the ensemble. These groups are peer-led and optional.

🔸RUTH'S PRACTICA (3 x 30minutes)

Ruth will offer 3 short practicas in which she will share some simple and effective practices that prepare us for playing chords A la Parrilla. For those who would like to start practicing as soon as they have booked, you will receive access to our new practice app, free of charge, as well as some  suggestions for a playful practice of the basics needed for A La Parrilla chords. For this workshop, you do not need to be able to read sheet music.

🔸EVENING SESSIONS (3 Sessions)

A convivial sharing of music and hanging out with each other, playing music for and with each other. For those who'd like to prepare for the evening sessions, we will create a selection of around 15 Tangos/Valses/Milongas in advance of the event.

Family and friends are invited to bring their instruments and join in, or come and just listen. This is an ideal opportunity to practise your A La Parrilla skills!

🔸INFORMAL PERFORMANCE

On the last morning, we will all gather for an informal "performance" to play through the pieces we have worked on during the weekend. We usually have a small, supportive audience of family members, friends and local visitors.

About Rocco Heins

Rocco Heins, born in Germany, is one of Europe's best-known bandoneonists and is renowned for his virtuoso and expressive playing.

Over the past decades, he has thrilled audiences in various formations - whether in concert halls, on theater stages or at street festivals. Rocco can also draw on a rich solo repertoire ranging from tango argentino to folklore and classical music.

Rocco Heins, born in Schleswig-Holstein in 1963, was five years old when he first became aware of the bandoneon - his father had given it to him. However, he only really discovered this special instrument at the age of 15. He was taken with the music of a street performer who played a hand harmonica.

Rocco has been working as a professional musician for 40 years. Initially mainly on the road in Hamburg, he soon played on many stages around the world - particularly often in Argentina and many major European cities. It was not unusual for him to play up to 100 concerts a year. For four years alone, he toured the world as a member of the Sexteto Canyengue, which also performed with tango orchestras from Buenos Aires.

Rocco gave a longer guest performance at the Burgtheater in Vienna. He worked there as a permanent member of the ensemble under the direction of the then head dramaturge Andrea Breth. On the occasion of Günter Grass' 80th birthday, he also performed at the Stadttheater Lübeck, with which he is still associated today through guest appearances and his own productions.