Cellist Claudia Sereni has been a member of renowned orchestras in Buenos Aires for many years, such as Ramiro Gallo’s orchestra and the Orquesta Típica Sans Souci, with whom she performed at La Locura two years ago. She took part in the last festival with Elegante Sport. Now she is – finally – coming with her own ensemble. As unusual as the line-up is with cello, double bass, vocals and bandoneon, it is just as top class with Cristian Basto, Paula Castignola and Sofia Calvet, who some will remember from last year’s La Santa Calavera.

Marisol Canessa was a violinist in the famous Sexteto Milonguero for many years before it was disbanded during the coronavirus pandemic. She then founded her own ensemble with the intention of playing 100% danceable music. The musical spectrum ranges from Di Sarli and Lomuto to Caló, Biagi, D’Arienzo, Tanturi, Canaro and Fresedo. The quartet is not only present in the milongas of Buenos Aires, such as La Viruta, El Beso, Paracultural, Salón Marabú and others, their tours regularly take them to Europe, where they perform at festivals and milongas in several countries. Now for the first time at La Locura, where they will ensure a packed dance floor.

Fabrizio Colombo’s grandfather was one of the leading bandoneon players in Mendoza, Argentina, his mother was a singer and his father a violinist. The musical foundation for Fabrizio was therefore well prepared. Initially a member of various orchestras in Mendoza and Chile, he went to Buenos Aires, where Néstor Marconi became his teacher. He was a member of the renowned Orquesta del Tango de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires and released his first album ‘Vestigio’ with the Colombo-Pérez-Colombo trio. With this project he transcribed the music of the legendary Vanguatrío (Néstor Marconi, Omar Valente and Héctor Console) from 1976. Today he lives in Paris, where he leads the Fabrizio Colombo 7teto and participates in various contemporary tango projects.

Lucas Eubel-Frontini also grew up in a musical environment in Argentina as the son of a jazz singer and a pianist, where he soon found his instrument, the double bass, after starting out with a self-built electric bass. He toured Europe several times with the Orquesta Típica Imperial before settling in France in 2006. He continued his training in Bordeaux and Toulouse, which he later completed in London with the principal double bass player of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. He now lives as an independent musician in Paris, but is also a permanent member of several ensembles such as the Orquesta Típica Silbando, with whom he has also performed at La Locura, the Cuarteto Lunares, Quinteto Emedea, Bandoneonissimo and Octetology.

The two know each other from their collaboration in various ensembles. With the project ‘L’Art du Duo’, under which title they also released an album in 2024, they combine the heritage of Argentinian music with influences from jazz and world music in the unusual combination of bandoneon and double bass. Tradition meets innovation.

Emiliano Faryna and Hugo Satorre, ‘Los Suplentes’ as they call themselves, began a few years ago to transfer the characteristic sound of the orchestras of the 1940s to the format of a duo of bandoneon and guitar.  Their repertoire also includes new tangos, works by Astor Piazzolla and Argentinian folklore. The duo’s speciality lies in their arrangements without sheet music, which give free rein to improvisation and lead to a fresh and constantly renewed sound. However, this has not prevented them from recording several albums.  ‘Los Suplentes’ have left their mark on the most important milongas in Buenos Aires and have taken their music to many European countries, including Tarbes in France, where they have repeatedly been invited to the renowned festival. Nominations for the Latin Grammy and the Carlos Gardel Award emphasise their importance in Argentinian tango music.

The Hyperion Ensemble was founded in 1992, at a time when some of the musicians playing at La Locura were not even born yet. This makes it probably the longest existing tango ensemble – at least in Europe. Its list of appearances at the world’s largest and most prestigious festivals, such as Athens, Barcelona, Brussels, Genoa, Istanbul, London, Mantua, Paris, Tarbes, Turin and many others, is correspondingly long. Hyperion is currently working to revitalise the tango festival in Fivizzano, which was popular many years ago and where several tango ensembles perform every autumn.

At our festival, Hyperion will be accompanied by Marisol Martinez, one of the most renowned tango singers, formerly with Orquesta Romantica Milonguera and most recently with Andariega.

In his long career, violinist Leonardo Ferreyra has played with many outstanding musicians, in his younger years with tango musicians from the golden age of tango in the 1940s and 1950s, and later with greats of contemporary tango such as Horacio Salgán, Rodolfo Mederos, Julio Pane, Dino Saluzzi and many others. He has recorded CDs with Mercedes Sosa, Bajofondo and Gotan Project. In 1999, he co-founded the Orquesta Típica Sans Souci. In the same year, he founded the string quartet named after him, a rare formation in the history of tango. It immediately caused a sensation at the First International Tango Festival in Buenos Aires in 1999.

The repertoire includes tango arrangements written especially for string quartet by the most famous tango composers between the 1960s and today, including arrangements by Ferreyra himself. Particularly noteworthy are the tangos by Eduardo Rovira, Néstor Marconi and Omar Valente, who arranged them for the string quartet of Guillermo Ferreyra, Leonardo’s father, and later for Leonardo’s own quartet. As a composer and arranger, Ferreyra is one of the leading avant-gardists of the tango. He will be joined by Rahel Zellweger (violin), Sophie Lüssi (viola) and Andreas Ochsner (cello). The repertoire shows the evolution of the string quartet in tango.

The quartet has released two CDs: ‘Sin Lágrimas’ (2010) and ‘Tributo a Astor Piazzolla’ (2013) with Néstor Marconi on bandoneon as a guest.

Noelia Sinkunas is an up-and-coming Argentinian pianist, composer and music producer known for her innovative approach to combining traditional tango and chamamé with contemporary musical styles. Her career to date has been characterised by the search for new sounds and the expansion of the boundaries of popular Argentine music. She won the Premio Gardel for Best Alternative Folk Album in 2023 with ‘Salve’, her third album, which emerged from an experimental process with chamamé and Argentine folk songs. This work was highly praised by critics and positioned her as one of the most important composers in the new metropolitan music scene.

She recently presented her fourth album entitled ‘Unión y Perseverancia’, on which she continues her musical exploration alongside prominent musicians such as Carolina Rodríguez (violin), Nacho Santos (bandoneón) and Cristian Basto (double bass). This new project is a creative dialogue between tango, chamamé and improvisation, inspired by the place of her origin. With this album, Noelia wants to challenge and expand the boundaries of Argentinian pop music.

At our festival, Noelia will perform in two concerts, in the Great Hall with her quartet and in concert in the Small Hall in a changing duo line-up.

The singer Noelia Tomassi, born in Buenos Aires and now living in Berlin, approaches tango from her own perspective, integrating influences from jazz, pop and rock. Performances in prestigious venues such as the Philharmonie Berlin and the Laeiszhalle Hamburg and collaborations with renowned musicians such as Roger Helou, Minino Garay, Gabriel Merlino and Lysandre Donoso have established an outstanding reputation.

Pablo Woiz leads his own ensemble ‘Milonga Roots’ as a pianist and arranger, with whom he has already made guest appearances at our festival. Both as a soloist (also at La Locura) and in collaboration with famous orchestral conductors such as Luis Stazo, Alfredo Marcucci and Juan José Mosalini, he is a much sought-after interpreter on many European stages.

At the last La Locura Festival, Noelia and Pablo delighted us with an intimate duo concert in the Small Hall. Noelia was also a guest singer with Cuarteto Ullmann and Pablo was a pianist with Ensemble 22. Now they are coming back together with a larger formation, with which they will play a varied repertoire of newly arranged tangos, valses and milongas.

The Orquesta Misteriosa Buenos Aires was founded in 2008 by Javier Arias, who had founded the ‘Orquesta Típica Fervor de Buenos Aires’ several years earlier. While ‘Fervor’ cultivated the music of Di Sarli, Arias wanted to expand the repertoire and revive the legacy of the great orchestras of the 1940s. Since then, classical and new tangos, valses, milongas, candombes, Argentine folklore and own versions of national rock have been played. The orchestra continues to develop the genre with new compositions and its own versions of classic tangos and offers a scene with a typical orchestra as in the past, but with the energy and character of the new generation.

The Orquesta Misteriosa Buenos Aires has been touring Europe regularly for several years, but only ever in autumn. Now they are making an exception and are coming in spring. An opportunity for us to invite them to the festival.

Pa’l Puchero Tango presents us with an original proposal to combine the traditional tango of the golden age with the percussion of the Argentine murgas barriales (street bands). Founded and led by pianist Mauricio Vuoto from Rosario, the quintet began its career with the recording of the triptych of milongas ‘Ruegos y dones del corazón’ in September 2021. The ensemble is based in Madrid and has performed mainly at festivals and milongas in Spain and Portugal.

The namesake of this quintet, Pedro Galván, runs a workshop in Buenos Aires where bandoneons are built and repaired, the Taller Galván. He showed us at the last La Locura Festival that he is not only a very good instrument maker but also an outstanding musician, when he and his ensemble thrilled the hall. This time, at the end of the festival on Sunday, the musicians will bring everyone to the dance floor once again and show how wonderfully chacarera and zamba go together with tango.

This ensemble has dedicated itself entirely to the music of Astor Piazzolla. Known for more than 20 years as ‘Quinteto de la Fundación Astor Piazzolla’, it changed its name to ‘Quinteto Revolucionario’ in 2020 as a tribute to the great innovator of tango music.

The intensive study of the music and the aim of maintaining and expanding the historical tradition and style of Piazzolla and his soloists in the various formations from the ‘Orquesta del 46’ to the ‘Sextet 1989’ formed the foundation for the outstanding reputation that the ensemble has earned internationally. The 2019 Latin Grammy was just one of many prizes earned by the ensemble and its excellent members, who have also shone in other formations. Several albums, most recently ‘Revolucionario’ in 2019, ‘100 años’ in 2021 and ‘PIAZZOLLA QR’ in 2024, document their interpretations.

Today, the Quinteto Revolucionario is recognised by many critics and experts as the world’s best ensemble for the interpretation of Astor Piazzolla’s music.  The ‘Astor Piazzolla Foundation’, run by Piazzolla’s widow, appointed the quintet as the only official representative of the musical legacy of the great Argentinian composer and musician due to its artistic quality, passion and fidelity of interpretation.

Its tours take the ensemble to the world’s most famous concert halls. It is an honour for us to welcome them at our festival.

At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, many Neapolitans made their way to South America. The music they took with them made it easier for them to find a new home. Roberta Roman, originally from Italy, was interested early on in the Italian influences on the music of the Argentinian tango. She discovered forgotten and lost melodies of Neapolitan immigrants and brought them back to life. With her trio of guitar, bandoneon and cello, she draws a red thread from Neapolitan chanson to tango with the addition of mandolin, the symbolic instrument of traditional Neapolitan music, electric bass and percussion. And when the voices of Petra Magoni and the Neapolitan rapper Lucariello are added to the mix, the connection between past and present, tradition and modernity is perfect.

While exploring the influence of Neapolitan music on the music of other countries, Roberta Moran soon came across the French city of Marseille. For many, Marseille was a staging post on the way overseas, while others stayed and found a new home. In February 1943, the French regime, in collaboration with the Nazi occupation, carried out an unprecedented purge, expelling 20,000 residents of the Saint-Jean neighbourhood, known as ‘Little Naples’ because of its predominant population, and destroying their homes. This cruel act went down in French history as ‘Operation Sultan’ and was later officially recognised as a crime against humanity. Roberta Roman and mandolinist Vincent Beer-Demander will commemorate this with a piece of music that they will play at La Locura. Other pieces impressively demonstrate the proximity and diverse connections between the culture and especially the music of these two fascinating cities.

Two years ago, Roberta Roman was at our festival with her trio and thrilled the audience with her intimate interpretations of well-known songs.  This time they are not playing for dancing but for listening. The Argentinian bandoneonist Marisa Mercadé is back, having played in Paris for years with Juan Jose Mosalini, later with Juan Carlos Caceres and Daniel Melingo, and for some time now has been part of Miguel di Genova’s Otros Aires, with whom she has also performed at La Locura.

Cellist Justine Metral is rooted in classical music, where she has performed as a soloist and in small formations at numerous festivals and in famous concert halls such as the Vienna Musikverein and the Royal Albert Hall.

The interesting and unusual combination of bandoneon, guitar and cello allows for intensive communication, the exchange of phrases within a suggestive and complex musical spectrum in which each instrument can express itself fully.

Roulotte is a collective that presents its own specific interpretations of the old tango in a new look in various formations.

At the last festival, the collective was represented by Chimichango, this time the ensemble will be joined by the bandoneonist and charismatic singer Gaspar Pocai. His compositions tell us about ordinary people and the questions that move them, translated into the form of the tango milonguero. Well-known tangos are dissected and alienated. Intensity, depth and passion characterise

Originating from Buenos Aires or the surrounding area, this ensemble is now based in Italy. Founded in 2019 by bandoneonist Nicolas Maceratesi and violinist Melody Quinteros, the members have each played in different ensembles and some of them still do today: Emilio Balcarce Orquesta, Sexteto Visceral, Lo Que Vendrá, Tango Bardo, La Santa Calavera and other projects on the international tango music scene, to name just a few examples. Performances at major festivals, such as Tarbes and Trani, and participation in Miguel Angel Zotto’s company ‘Tango x 2’ and other shows are their references. In 2023, they released their album ‘Seguime Si Podés’, named after the famous piece by Osvaldo Pugliese.

The repertoire of this quintet is enormous. From D’Arienzo to Biagi, Caló, Di Sarli, Leopoldo Federico, Piazzolla, Pugliese, Troilo and Hector Varela, the ensemble brings a wide range of music to the stage and makes the musicians dance. An ideal start to an energetic tango weekend.

This trio from Buenos Aires with two guitars, double bass and vocals gave us a lot of pleasure last year at the festival by playing fresh and spontaneous tunes in front of the Haus der Musik, in the foyer and in places where there was an audience at the time, thus shortening the waiting time. We are happy to offer this again. If the weather allows, they will also give small concerts in other places in the city centre, to which dancing is of course also encouraged.

After completing her academic training, Argentinian pianist, composer and arranger Yazmina Raies initially began her career with works of popular music, but soon specialised in tango and the music of the Rio de la Plata. In 2011, she won the national tango competition ‘Hugo del Carril’ in the duos to quartets category. This was followed in 2017 by her first solo album entitled ‘Tangos en Piano Solo’ with her own arrangements that combine the spirit of tango with modern harmonies in a personal, modern and refined style. She recorded the album ‘Gobbi Inédito’ with the Orquesta Escuela de Tango Emilio Balcarce. In 2018, she founded her own tango trio, with which she tries to combine the traditional tango genre with her own contemporary language.

Yazmina Raies is also involved in piano education. She has written three books of tango arrangements for piano at various levels and a series of books of tango duets for piano and melody instruments.

At our festival, the trio will be joined by Paula Castignola, who is one of the most sought-after tango singers in Buenos Aires and works with renowned musicians. She will also give a solo concert in the Small Hall.

Zinnetango, founded in Brussels in 2021, is made up of top musicians from Argentina and Belgium. Their shared passion for the tango tradition reflects both the enthusiasm and piquancy of the ‘guardia vieja’ and the melancholy of the ‘guardia nueva’. Their repertoire includes works by Pugliese, Gobbi, Salgán, Piazzolla, Spinetta, but also the great Belgian chansonnier Jacques Brel. As representatives of a new generation of Argentinian-European tango, the ensemble expresses its vision of world music through original arrangements and compositions, and at our festival especially through the participation of bandoneonist Fabrizio Colombo.

Amira Campora

Amira has been involved with tango since 1990, as a dancer, teacher, producer and DJ. Influenced by Gustavo Naveira and Chicho Frumboli, she was involved in Sally Potter’s ‘Tango Lesson’. After several years in Europe, where she did pioneering work in the field of women’s technique in tango, she now lives in Buenos Aires again, from where she regularly sets off on tours to Europe, the USA and Canada.

Aurora Fornuto

Aurora’s DJ quality is confirmed by her many engagements at all the major and famous marathons and festivals throughout Europe. Athens, Lisbon, Tarbes, Catania, Zurich and many other places regularly invite her. She is resident DJ at Bunker Tango in Turin and organiser of many events with live music and workshops. We are delighted to have her at our festival once again.

Paolo Lombardo

Paolo’s musical career began in 2008 with a degree in composition from the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Turin. He worked as a musician and discovered the tango, which never let him go. After he had become a tango teacher in Rome, he founded the Luna Negra tango school in Bern with his partner Elena Bertagna. There they offer lessons and organise practicas and milongas, as well as their own Luna Negra festival. Paolo as DJ, both together as teacher and show couple are frequently booked for big tango events in Italy and Switzerland.

Sebastian Valencak

Sebastian is a resident DJ in Innsbruck. He has been DJing at milongas and tango weeks in Germany (Berlin, Hamburg and many other cities), Switzerland (Bergün), Rovinj and La Milonga on Crete for many years.