Pato Lorente (Patrick Vankeirsbilck) started his musical career as a flute player, after a brilliant education in Bruges and Brussels. Already in the early 90s - just before the big tango revival - he became fascinated by the tango music and attended several master classes related to this music directed by Carel Kraayenhof (Rotterdam), Alfredo Marcucci (Belgium), Mosalini (Paris) and Marcelo Mercadante (Barcelona). In that period he also started his bandoneon study with Alfredo Marcucci with whom he frequently performed abroad sometimes in the company of Luis Stazo (Sexteto Mayor) and Mosalini (orchestra Osvaldo Pugliese). He toured with Alfredo Marcucci until the death of the master in 2010. Alfredo Marcucci – who played in the legendary orchestras of Carlos Marcucci, Julio De Caro and Carlos Di Sarli in the Golden Age of tango (30s and 40s) - learned Pato all the secrets of the “Rheinische” bisonoric bandoneon and how to interprete danceable tango music. The master saw Pato as his only permanent pupil and regarded him during the last months of life as his artistic heir after 18 years of intense collaboration.

In Buenos Aires Pato joined masters such as Julio Pane, Pablo Mainetti and Carlos Pazo. In November 1998 he took part as a flutist and bandoneon in the 11th International Tango Festival in Montevideo, Uruguay. His frequent trips to the region of the Rio de la Plata brought Patrick in very close contact with the tango culture and all along started to speak fluently Spanish. Around this time he also founded the Tango 02 ensemble that focuses on traditional danceable tango music and with which he performs in Belgium, the Netherlands and France while enjoying great acclaim because of the highly danceable character of the performances.

In Belgium he took part in 2004 as a bandoneon soloist in the French-speaking theater play "Borges et moi" and was heard on the Dutch broadcast channel AVRO during a concert at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. In 2007 and 2011 Pato Lorente played with the trio Urbango and the Torbellino 4 project on the Belgian national radio station "La Première". In 2010 the national radio channel Musiq3 made with him an interview about tango dance. In the classical music genre, he interpreted in 2012 the harmonium part of the "Petite Messe Solennelle" of G. Rossini on bandoneon. His versatility as an artist brought him to the Antwerp tango triphop band El Juntacadáveres where he plays an important role as a bandoneon player and as a composer.

Since 2009 Pato Lorente is pedagogically active as a teacher for bandoneon and tango music ensemble in several music schools of the Flemish Community. He is thus the only bandoneon teacher in official music schools across Belgium and in Europe whereby the class is also open to children. He acted as the assistant of the maestro Alfredo Marcucci at masterclasses in southern France and Sweden, and even now he is regularly asked in the United Kingdom asked to conduct masterclasses around tango music. His thorough training in music theory and composition, both in the classical and jazz idioms resulted in Pato Lorente winning in 2012 the Dutch "Choclo" Composition Prize for danceable tango music.


Picture: Luc van Uytvanck