Menu

Emiliano Messiez

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1979 and based in New York City since 2016, Emiliano Messiez has become one of the most in-demand tango pianists in the US. He has played some of New York’s most notable music venues, including Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Minton’s Playhouse, Trinity Church, The Bitter End, Caffe Vivaldi, Terraza 7, Club Bonafide, Fordham University, Astoria Tango Club, The Flatiron Room, Thalia Spanish Theatre and the Sembrich Opera Music Venue in Bolton Landing, among many others.

Outside of New York, Emiliano has performed at The Barnes Foundation and Lithuanian Music Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; the Milford Center for the Arts in Connecticut; The Plaza Theatre in El Paso, Texas and the Théâtre Maisonneuve at the Place des Arts in Montreal, Canada. He has also been featured at major music festivals around the world, such as the Baradero Rock Festival in Argentina, the CT Tango Festival in Connecticut, the Harlem Music Festival, the Tango Queer Festival in New York and the “Philly Tango Fest” in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, among many others.

Emiliano has had the opportunity to play with some of the world’s top musicians throughout his career, such as Paquito de Rivera (16 time Grammy Award winner), Dino Saluzzi (3 time Konex Award winner), Concha Buika (Grammy Award winner), Raul Jaurena (Latin Grammy Award winner), Fernando Otero (Grammy Award winner), Celeste Carballo, Leon Gieco, Horacio Romo, JP Jofre, Pablo Aslan, Pedro Giraudo, Alan Plachta, Martin Sued and Jose Luis Infantino. With Jose Luis Infantino, he recorded an album titled “Silencio” in 2004 which received a Unesco Prize for music, given to musicians whose work has contributed to the enrichment and development of music.

Emiliano is the pianist for the hit Broadway and London show "Forever Tango", a show that has been seen by more than 8 million people around the world, and the pianist of the group The Aces of Rhythm, a Tango sextet based in New York City. He has also served as the music director and pianist for the successful shows “Impact” and "Tango Buenos Aires", created by Mario & Daniel Celario, and is the creator of “Barolo Tango,” a live tango show based in Argentina.

Since moving to New York City, Emiliano has created several different projects such as the "Messiez Duo", the "Messiez Trio", the “Típica Messiez” (a 10-piece Tango Orchestra) and “Tango Dueling Pianos” a unique and never-seen-before concept featuring two tango pianists.

Emiliano is the composer and musical director for the upcoming musical, “Bordello,” which is set in 1920s Buenos Aires, and combines the musical influences of tango, klezmer, pop, rock, jazz, and swing, among other genres. The book and lyrics of Bordello are written by Barbara Bellman.

Emiliano began playing the piano by ear at the age of 3. From there, he dedicated his life to the piano, studied and graduated from the National University of the Arts (UNA - Universidad Nacional de las Artes) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He later joined the faculty there, teaching courses in Counterpoint, Harmony and Music History in the Department of Composition. He also attended and graduated from Berklee College of Music’s Escuela de Music Contemporánea (EMC) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Beyond his extensive training in Classical Music, Emiliano has also mastered Tango, Jazz, Pop music and the many Latin-American Rhythms of Argentina, Spain and Brazil.