In times of selective memory, where official narratives have reduced tango to nostalgic formulas or the omnipresent shadow of Piazzolla, the Belgian group SONIC It has been building a decade building: rescue and revitalize the figure of Eduardo Rovirathat Argentine composer who, as Piazzolla himself recognized, was “more revolutionary than me” in the years of gestation of the so -called modern tango.
This 2025, Upon the centenary of Rovira’s birthSonica launches its ambitious “Rovira 100” project: a South American tour – Argentina and Chile – a new album engraved in Buenos Aires, and a battery of international events that consolidate an unusual artistic commitment for its coherence, depth and vision.
The tour is not a simple tribute. Sonica – integrated by musicians from Belgium, France, the US and Argentina – plays Rovira Not as archeology but as living matter. With a language that articulates camer precision, rhythmic tension and interpretive risk, the quintet manages to place tango in a field where the classic and contemporary dialogue without concessions.
Between April 18 and 23, 2025, Sonico will offer a series of concerts in Argentina as part of its tour Rovira 100. On April 18 it will be presented at the San Juan Bicentennial Theater; on 19, at the Theater of the Liberator of Córdoba within the Pro Arte cycle; on 20, in the Río Cuarto Municipal Theater; and on 23, in the Libertad Palace (Argentine Sala) of Buenos Aires, within the framework of the Mozarteum cycle.
The repertoire of the new album, also entitled Rovira 100recover two of the composer’s boldest works: Sonic (1969) and That they stop (1975). Recorded in Buenos Aires during the tour-in the Doctor F studio-the album proposes a reading that emphasizes the experimental, almost proto-electronic character, of Rovira. Without falling into the update trap by the update itself, Sonico makes music dialogue with the aesthetics of the present without betraying its identity.
More than a tour, Rovira 100 It is a political and aesthetic statement: tango should not be preserved as a museum piece, but tensioning, rewritten, discussed. And that demands rigorous work. Sonico not only interprets: investigate, transcribe, restores scores from manuscripts and unpublished recordings. Thanks to them, More than 70 works by Rovira today have international circulation. This work has also been recognized by the Buenos Aires Legislature, which declared its work of cultural interest.
Sonico’s proposal is not exhausted in the south. The project Rovira 100 Includes, among other milestones, the ballet setting Tango Buenos Aires “Inspired in Stravinsky,” a tango symphony with Brussels Philharmonic (2026), and a residence at the Strombeek Grimbergen Cultural Center, where they will premiere their fifth album on November 20. The highlight will be Integral Roviraa retrospective that will be deployed in the Antwerpen Spring Festival and that promises to be the first complete interpretation of his work in a symphonic and scenic framework.
In a scene where tango is often folded on its certainties, Sonica bets on creative discomfort. It is no accident that your previous double album, Piazzolla – Rovira: The Edge of Tangowas recognized by Gramophone Magazine Like a historical work. Nor is it casual that your latest production, Five, Six, Seven, Eight …has had its premiere in the Palace of Fine Arts in Brussels, followed by a tour that led him to music temples such as the Philharmonie de Luxembourg or Düsseldorf’s tonhalle.
Sonico’s merit does not only reside in what they do, but in how they do it. In a present where many productions appeal to the effective or the flat recreation of a repertoire, This multinational group returns to tango what you need most: complexity, thought, disruption. Rovira 100 It is not just a celebration. It is, in short, a way to imagine the future from a music that, paradoxically, was written more than half a century ago.
By rn
Image gallery
