Cafe de los maestros.

• Author: Holston, Mark
• Position: MUSIC

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In Buenos Aires, Virginia Luque is one of but a small handful of artists who can lay claim to the title of "living legend." The 81-year-old entertainer is remembered both for her role as a glamorous leading lady of the silver screen over half a century ago and as one of Argentina's most popular tango divas. Today, she remains as active as at any time in her long career. To get on the stage she may require the assistance of a muscular dancer young enough to be her grandson, but she is still capable of wowing audiences singing the classic tangos she helped popularize decades ago.

Composer Leopoldo Federico, at age 83, stays busy writing new tangos and acting as president of the Argentine Association of Interpreters, an organization dedicated to protecting intellectual property rights. With a German made accordion-like bandoneon tango's signature instrument, always close at hand, the man considered by many to be his land's greatest living bandoneonista puts the finishing touches on a new arrangement in the association's Buenos Aires office, surrounded by posters from concerts he has performed at home and abroad.

Atilio Stampone, yet another fabled tango musician, hasn't let age slow him down either. At 84, the composer and pianist still spends every working day overseeing the affairs of the Argentine Society of Authors and Composers as the organization's president. Occasionally he delights his fans by venturing back into the limelight, fronting his well-rehearsed tango ensemble in concerts around this capital city of fourteen million.

The life stories of these three iconic personalities and nineteen other noted singers, instrumentalists, composers, and conductors who played central roles during tango's golden age are the focus of Cafe de los maestros, a multimedia project designed to focus well-deserved attention on these legendary artists. In the 1940s and '50s when they were among tango's brightest stars, the elegant born-in Buenos Aires music style was a national obsession. The city's voluminous dance halls featured grand tango orchestras and catered to untold thousands of dancers who gathered on a nightly basis to be swept away by the magical strains of tango in its classic form.

The intervening decades have eroded the once glistening facade of the tango culture. Many of these once celebrated performers, now in their 80s and 90s, have faded into obscurity. The large orchestras that once enthralled diehard followers...