About Us

EL TALLER LATINO AMERICANO (The Latin American Workshop) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit arts and education organization that was founded in New York City in 1979 to bridge the distance between Latin Americans and North Americans through the language of art and the art of language. EL TALLER, located in a large loft space on Broadway and W. 104th St. offers its community a varied menu of arts programming and Spanish language classes that seek not only to entertain and educate, but to gather together culturally and linguistically mixed audiences on the common ground of creativity.

EL TALLER'S famous, conversation-focused Spanish classes have been recognized by The Village Voice, The Daily News and thousands of satisfied students as among the best and most effective in the city. Montefiore, Columbia Presbyterian, and New York Downtown Hospitals as well as Children's Television Workshop and the New York Public Library are among the public service organizations that have entrusted EL TALLER with the Spanish language training of their staffs.

El Taller also has a 22-year history of being the musical home in New York for musicians from all over the Americas. Our Artistic Director Bernardo Palombo is a composer, performer and impresario who has brought some of the greatest names in American music to El Taller including: Mercedes Sosa, Philip Glass, David Byrne, Leon Gieco, Atahualpa Yupanqui, Grupo Aymara, Conjunto Libre, The Soldier String Quartet, Pete Seeger, Luis Días, and Larry Harlow. Our goal is not only to present the best in Latin music, but also to encourage a mixture of musical traditions that results in new creative collaborations and truly new music.

In addition to offering classes and artistic events, El Taller provides a variety of artistic and linguistic support services for individuals, companies and other community organizations, including:

• Access to high quality musicians for all types of events
• Artist Bureau offering services such as portraits painting, murals, images for print reproduction , art restoration, sculpture design, production, molds, castings, ornamentation and individual assistance, high-quality framing of paintings and photography
• Translation and interpretation services between English and Spanish
• Cultural consulting

We hope this website comes close to reflecting the surprising and wonderful place that El Taller is.