Chilean-born Dr. Alfonso Padilla is an adjunct professor and senior lecturer in musicology at the University of Helsinki. He has researched and published extensively on the history and significance of Finnish Tango. As part of his research project The Finnish Tango – history, stylistic evolution and importance, which is funded by the Kone Foundation, he is trying to listen and catalogue every single Finnish Tango ever recorded. By his current reckoning, there are about 6300 of them.
His research investigates the presence of Finnish Tango not only in the more popular and traditional way, but also how the tango emerges in the (specially new) folk music, rock, jazz, fusion and contemporary classic music of Finland.
You can read more about Dr. Padilla’s work in this 2019 article of the journal Finnish Music Quarterly.
This 2009 article by Dr. Padilla, published in the same journal, gives a concise overview and introduction to the history of Finnish Tango.