In the volunteer editorial team, Volunteers for Chemnitz 2025 publish reports on their experiences, assignments and adventures around the European Capital of Culture.
Maria comes from Italy and has been working as a volunteer for the Capital of Culture since 2023. Maria is really enthusiastic about Chemnitz and thinks it's great to learn more about the history and culture of this beautiful city.
On 31 May 2025, the Argentine Tango Festival kicked off in Chemnitz. The city was transformed into a little Buenos Aires.
The Chemnitz Tango Festival 2025 celebrates the inventor of the accordion, Carl Friedrich Uhlig, who invented this instrument in Chemnitz in 1834. It is a different type of accordion, also known as the "bandoneon" or "Uhlig's German concertina instrument" or "Chemnitz accordion".
But what does this type of accordion have to do with tango? A German emigrant popularised this instrument in Argentina. His music was created together with the famous dance, which attracted musicians and dancers from all over the world to Chemnitz on the occasion of the European Capital of Culture.
In keeping with the motto "C the unseen", Chemnitz discovers and celebrates its musical history with this festival in a festival of colours, elegant glittering evening dresses and dancing shoes.
This leap into the past and into Argentinian music took me back to my childhood, when my grandfather played the accordion while we danced the tango.
So immersed in music and beauty, a five-hour shift until one o'clock in the morning flew by. While I made sure that the buffet was always well-stocked, I had the opportunity to talk to many dancers from different parts of Germany. I had the honour and privilege of meeting Andrea Sautel, choreographer and dancer of "Maria de Buenos Aires" at the theatre in Lübeck. Together with his partner Maude Andrey, they enchanted and delighted the large audience.