What a lovely night we had on Friday! Venetia had tickets for yet another wonderful free concert at the Kirchner Centre. A friend of hers is visiting from England, so he came along and I also invited Cecilia.

The concert featured the Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional de Argentina, and for the second half there was also a huge, amazing choir. You can just barely see them on the level above the stage in this photo.

Like most people who see a performance here for the first time, Ian was blown away with the place, the concert — and the fact that it’s free!

I just pinched this photo from Venetia’s Facebook page!

The concert finished just before 10 pm, but this is Buenos Aires so the night was still young and we weren’t finished yet. Cecilia lives quite far away, so she left, but Venetia, Ian and I went on to one of our all-time favourite places (which I’ve written about here before), La Poesia. It’s one of the old Bares Notables, and has the most wonderful ambiance as well as food and — if you’re lucky — entertainment. Tonight we were lucky.

As we were finishing our dinner, a woman came in the front door and I asked Venetia if it was the woman who sings. She doesn’t look anything like an entertainer, so I wasn’t sure, but Venetia said she thought it was. Sure enough, a few moments later the woman took up her place in front of the door and began to sing. No accompaniment, no stage, and plenty of ambient noise, but her beautiful voice rose above it all. My late husband would have said she had a “whisky voice”, which is just what you need to sing tango. I asked her to sing Cancion de Buenos Aires, one of my favourite tango songs, but I didn’t like to video it as she was standing right in front of me. Maybe next time I’ll ask her if I can. In the meantime, I hope this video will give you a taste for her singing as well as the lovely old place itself.

If you ever come to visit me in Buenos Aires, La Poesia will definitely be one of the places I take you to!