Laura Camacho

Athens Tango Project

In 2012, Camacho founded the Athens Tango Project in Athens, Georgia, gathering musicians from the local music scene and the University of Georgia’s music programs to perform Argentine tango.

The Athens Tango Project won the Flagpole Magazine Athens Music Awards in both 2014 and 2016 in the World Music category. Flagpole Magazine music editor Gabe Vodicka described the group as bringing world music to prominence in Athens and credited them with helping establish a local interest in music from other parts of the world. Pianist Emiliano Messiez noted the ensemble's ability to perform Argentine tango despite its internationally diverse membership, observing that not all non-Argentine musicians master the style.

The group performed at the 2016 Flagpole Athens Music Awards show at the Morton Theatre alongside Mothers, the Pylon Reenactment Society, and other Athens acts, joined by dancers from DanceFX. The group also performed at TEDxUGA in 2016. A feature story on Camacho and the Athens Tango Project by WUGA FM contributing producer Allison Salerno won the Georgia Association of Broadcasters’ GABBY Award for Best Feature Story in the Large Market category in 2019.

The group has collaborated with tango artists including Tanghetto and Alejandro Ziegler Tango Quartet. They have also performed tango arrangements of songs by Athens-associated artists including R.E.M., Neutral Milk Hotel, Kishi Bashi, and Pylon, which include performances with original Pylon vocalist Vanessa Briscoe Hay and Pylon Reenactment Society member Jason NeSmith.

In 2019, Athens Tango Project recorded a tango cover of “I Have Been Floated” by The Olivia Tremor Control for the compilation album ‘’An Enthusiast’s Fanfare for Elephant 6'’, featuring backing vocals by Will Cullen Hart, a founding member of The Olivia Tremor Control and Circulatory System (band). Flagpole Magazine singled out the track as one of the standout recordings on the compilation.

In January 2023, the Athens Tango Project released its debut EP ‘’Para Compartir’’ (‘’To Be Shared’’), featuring the cover of R.E.M.’s “Drive.” The EP was covered by WUGA FM and The Red and Black.

Laura Camacho Tango Project

Camacho founded the Laura Camacho Tango Project for her work as a composer and bandleader, featuring collaborations with musicians across the United States and Argentina. In November 2025, the project released the album ‘’Todo Tiempo Pasado’’, featuring original compositions by Camacho alongside works by Astor Piazzolla, Mariano Mores, as well as tango arrangements of songs by Britney Spears and Kate Bush. The album features Latin Grammy-nominated composers Emiliano Messiez and Ariel Pirotti and Premios Tango Siglo XXI nominated Japanese bandoneonist Natsuki Nishihara.

‘’Todo Tiempo Pasado’’ received a five-star review from Roots Music Report, which also published an extended interview with Camacho about the album. It was selected as the recommended album of the month by Tango21 for May 2026, with a review originally published in the German tango magazine ‘’Tangodanza’’, which noted the album’s jazz-inflected sound and its orientation toward presenting tango as a contemporary art form. The album charted at number 15 on the Spin The Globe Top 15 World Music Albums chart for December 2025 and debuted on the Jazzweek Jazz Chart in May 2026, reaching number 306 as of June 2026.

‘’Todo Tiempo Pasado’’ received international radio airplay, including on CBC Radio’s ‘’Saturday Night Jazz’’ with Laila Biali, the ‘’Mil mundos’’ program on Radio Nacional de España Radio Clásica produced by Mundofonías, NHK FM in Japan, and Resonance FM in London, where DJ Ritu MBE featured the album on ‘’A World in London’’. In the United States the album received airplay on Peter Bochan's syndicated All Mixed Up radio show on WBAI Pacifica Radio in New York, on ‘’Transpacific Sound Paradise’’ on WFMU, on ‘’Full Moon Hacksaw’’, a jazz program distributed nationally through Public Radio Exchange, and on ‘’Horizontes’’, KUTX music program. The album was included on the syndicated programs, Modern Jazz Today , Jazz Happening Now , and Jazz After Hours. Camacho also appeared live in studio for a special edition of ‘’The Geography of Sound’’ on KOOP (FM) and was featured as a guest on ‘’El Arranque’’ and ‘’Talento con T de Tango’’, two programs on La 2x4 FM 92.7, part of the es:Radio de la Ciudad radio network and the official tango radio station of the City of Buenos Aires. Laura Camacho was featured in a 21 minute interview broadcast on Uruguayan public radio station Babel (radio station), discussing the album. Camacho was also interviewed on the ‘’Contrabass Conversations’’ podcast and featured on ‘’The Jazz Disturbance’’ podcast on All About Jazz.

Orquesta Típica Laura Camacho

In Austin, Camacho directs the Orquesta Típica Laura Camacho, a tango ensemble that made its documented public debut at Esquina Passion, a pre-festival milonga at Esquina Tango in Austin, on March 19, 2026. Diario El Día identified the ensemble as the second orquesta típica in the history of tango to be directed by a woman, after Paquita Bernardo’s Orquesta Paquita in the 1920s, and the first in the United States. Argentine press coverage in 2026 described her as a pivotal figure in contemporary tango in the United States.

In an interview with Otra Canción, Camacho discussed the historical connection between her orchestra and Bernardo. She described her own orchestra as a continuation of Bernardo's precedent after nearly a century, noting that Bernardo passed away in 1925. Camacho said she is proud of the orchestra but wishes that a century hadn't passed between the two orchestras. She described the orchestra's foundation as a precedent for future generations of women in tango.

Camacho discussed the gender dynamics of tango leadership, and described opposition she encountered as a woman directing a tango orquesta típica. She has noted that women have increasingly taken on roles as musicians, composers, and organizers while positions of authority in traditional tango orchestras have remained predominatly male. She described the inbanace as reflecting a persistence of patriarchal structures and said that establishing her position as orchestra director was a form of activism.

Camacho has also described her practice of conducting the ensemble through movement and dance as an innovation in the genre’s performance tradition, providing musicians with physical cues about tango rhythm. The ensemble also functions as an orchestra school, with students performing independently for tango events in other cities.

Touring and Collaborations

Camacho has performed as a bassist with tango ensembles across the United States. She has collaborated with composer Emiliano Messiez, bandoneonist Horacio Romo, director of Sexteto Mayor, and Pablo Agri, violin, Tanghetto, as well as Pablo Estigarribia, and Julián Peralta. Camacho also formed a modal jazz and folk trio with John Fernandes, founding member of The Olivia Tremor Control and Circulatory System.

In May 2024, Camacho performed as a featured artist at the CU Tango Music Festival in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. The festival concert featured her as one of several composers performing their own work, alongside Julián Peralta. In July 2024, she performed with Julián Peralta’s quintet at the “Tango de Hoy” intensive at the Philadelphia Argentine Tango School. In summer 2025 she toured across multiple US cities with Julián Peralta.

Theater and multimedia

Camacho composed “Kaolin Cha Cha” for the documentary film ‘’Eat White Dirt’’, which premiered on January 5, 2017, on REEL SOUTH / PBS.

Camacho composed the original score for ‘’The Serpents Fly at Sundown’’, an outdoor lantern puppetry performance about environmental justice, created in collaboration with Glass Half Full Theatre of Austin. The work received an inaugural Artistic Citizenship Collaborative Creative Project Grant from the UT Austin College of Fine Arts and premiered at the Cohen New Works Festival at the University of Texas at Austin on April 7, 9, and 10, 2025, and is part of an ongoing production by Glass Half Full Theatre.

At the 2025 Cohen New Works Festival, Camacho co-led ‘’Emiliana: A Revolution Cabaret’’, a play with music presented at the B. Iden Payne Theatre at UT Austin on April 8–10, 2025.

In October 2026, Camacho composed the music for ‘’Close Embrace: A Participatory Memoir Play’’, written and directed by Irene Zhiyi Chen, presented at the Lab Theatre at the University of Texas at Austin.

Teaching and lectures

Camacho has taught double bass and tango to musicians at multiple levels. In Buenos Aires she taught double bass at youth orchestras affiliated with El Sistema, an international music education program, from 2008 to 2009.

She has taught music at the Rollins Child Development Center in Athens from 2017 to 2019. She also led a free tango music workshop for strings and bass at the Community Center for the Arts during the CU Tango festival and has coached bassists at the Tanguero Workshop led by Julián Peralta. She has also given guest lectures on tango music at the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, Texas Tech University, and the University of Illinois.

In November 2024, she participated in the concluding roundtable of the Tango in the Humanities Conference at Emory University, an academic conference affiliated with the Cambridge Companion to Tango and supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

She also participated as a community music producer in the “Local Producers Roundtable” at the Musicking Communities & Labor symposium organized by the Musicology/Ethnomusicology division of the Butler School of Music, held February 14–15, 2026.

In the United States she has served as an instructor and guest conductor of Mariachi Ensemble at the University of Texas at Austin, for which she composed two original works in 2025 — “Unas Notas Para Utlán” and “Divide” — both described as Tango Contemporaneo and performed by the Butler School of Music's Mariachi Utlán ensemble.

As Laura Camacho Tango Project

• ’’Todo Tiempo Pasado’’ (2025) — Athens Tango Project label; charted #15 on Spin The Globe Top 15 World Music Albums, December 2025; debuted on Jazzweek Jazz Chart May 2026

As Athens Tango Project

• ’’Oblivion’’ (single, 2020)
• ’’ECOS’’ (single, with ‘’Adiós Nonino’’, 2022/2024)
• ’’Para Compartir’’ (EP, 2023) — Athens Tango Project label

As co-composer (The Broken String Band)

• ’’The Culprit & the Stage’’ — The Broken String Band (2019) — co-composer
• ’’Lady Casanova’’ — The Broken String Band (single, 2019) — co-composer
• ’’Family & Friends’’ — The Broken String Band (single, 2019) — co-composer

As composer (theater and multimedia)

• ’’Eat White Dirt’’ — documentary film, PBS/REEL SOUTH (2017) — composer (shared credit)
• ’’Athens Rising: The Sicyon Project: Volume One’’ — documentary film (2018) — composer: “De La Tierra”; “Tango Libelula” (co-written with Jay Gonzalez of Drive-By Truckers); performer
• ’’The Serpents Fly at Sundown’’ — Glass Half Full Theatre / Cohen New Works Festival, UT Austin (2025, ongoing) — composer (original score)
• ’’Emiliana: A Revolution Cabaret’’ — Cohen New Works Festival, UT Austin (2025) — composer and co-project lead
• ’’Close Embrace: A Participatory Memoir Play’’ — Lab Theatre, Department of Theatre and Dance, UT Austin (2026) — composer (original music)

As composer (Mariachi)

• ”Unas Notas Para Utlán” (Tango Contemporaneo, 2025) — performed by Mariachi Utlán, Butler School of Music, UT Austin
• ”Divide” (Tango Contemporaneo, 2025) — performed by Mariachi Utlán, Butler School of Music, UT Austin

Compilations and other appearances

• ’’Eso Vive’’ — Catupecu Machu (DVD, 2002)
• ’’Bride’’ — Layma Azur (2005)
• ’’Por Lo Nuestro’’ — Rodrigo Vázquez Cuarteto (2009)
• ’’EEM Ensamble Eramusical’’ (2009)
• ’’Street Song’’ — University of Georgia Wind Ensemble, conducted by John P. Lynch (Naxos 8.572917, 2012)
• ’’Ibis, Vol. I’’ — (2018, jazz album)
• ”I Have Been Floated” (cover of The Olivia Tremor Control) — ‘’An Enthusiast’s Fanfare for Elephant 6'’, E6 Enthusiasts (2019), featuring Will Cullen Hart
• ’’Miguel del Aguila: Orchestral Works’’ — Augusta Symphony (Albany Records, 2022)