Sun 20 Apr 2025 – 20:00 – Sounds from the North of Argentina – Santiago Arias in Concert

On April 20, the renowned Argentine bandoneonist Santiago Arias will perform a unique concert at Theater Munganga in Amsterdam. The performance will take the audience on a musical journey through the diverse rhythms of northern Argentina, weaving the rich sounds of the Andes with the depth and melancholy of tango, the iconic genre of the Río de la Plata.

With an innovative and contemporary approach, Santiago Arias explores these musical traditions, accompanied by guest artists. He offers an intimate and captivating experience that connects the roots of Argentine folklore with new musical horizons.

Santiago Arias is a multi-instrumentalist, although the bandoneon is his instrument of choice.
He was born and grew up in Jujuy (in the very North of Argentina), where he absorbed the music of the Andes, his inspiration; now he takes it up again with his own expressiveness and with the opening of the traditional forms that improvisation offers.

He released 2 of his own albums: "Fuellisto" (2014) and "Evocación de Carnaval" (2021), playing bandoneon solo in both of them.

His latest record "Evocación de Carnaval" was created and recorded in the COVID 19’s quarantine and shows a Santiago Arias only with the bandoneon, and in some cases the voice, intimate and with room for free improvisation on anonymous folkloric melodies, with the noticeable influence of his trajectory through various musical genres.

Currently performs a bandoneon and voice concert, with a folkloric repertoire (approached from a renewed and not so traditional aesthetic) from the northwest of Argentina and the Andean part of Bolivia, where he plays songs from his two solo albums, and music from other genres such as Tango and Jazz. He integrates the set with an effects pedal that gives a new perspective to folk music, taking it out of the traditional sound, and giving it a dreamlike aesthetic at times but without losing the root and weight that characterizes Andean music.

He also has four more albums from other projects of his own, and participated in the recording of the album "Absinthe" (2019), by the English guitarist and composer Dominic Miller for the german label ECM, wich took him on tour for two years through Asia and Europe.