We are Vito Sputnik, an Argentinean tango duo consisting of a small but strong formation: bandoneon and piano. We are part of a new generation of tango musicians from the city of Rosario, which had its origins in the Orquesta Escuela de Tango. New ensembles, new arrangers and composers, new festivals and milongas, new friends, on the banks of the mighty Paraná River, with its brown waters, its merchant ships and its profile of islands.
Since we came together in 2011, we have performed extensively around Argentina and its neighbouring countries. In 2022 we made our first tour in Ireland and Scotland and we repeated it the two following years. We performed for dancers in Milongas throughout the territory but also in different listening venues like the Kaleidoscope Nights in Dublin, the Mountshannon Arts Festival or in Portumna’s Christchurch with the Irish string set Treo Ensamble.
Our instrumental repertoire takes up the compositions of the Orchestras of the first half of the 20th century, when tango was mixed in the streets, in the lives of the people, and the lyrics still brought some countryside notes. We would like to bring all those sounds back.
AGUSTINA TABORDA / Bandoneón
She started dancing tango when she was very young and immediately fell under the spell of the bandoneon. Was it from the breaks and figures of the dance, from its micro movements, that she now makes those minimal notes sound as if they were little birds, or launches a long, round and blue note, or marks a determined and sharp rhythm like a knife duel but pressing those randomly distributed buttons?
Agustina Taborda is an Argentinian eclectic musician and composer based in Galway, Ireland. Her main instrument is the bandoneón, central to Argentine music. In recent years, the addition of piano, voice, and electronics has expanded her sound palette, resulting in her solo album I bhfad ar shiúl (2020) and the collaborative albums Por Mercurio (2022) and Music for silent films (2026).
Agustina performs widely, including appearances at Music for Galway, Kaleidoscope Nights, Mountshannon Arts Festival, Donegal Chamber Music Festival, Killaloe Music Festival, and Galway Tradfest. She plays often with the tango duo Vito Spuntik, the German tango sextet Papas C and the salsa–trad fusion group Baile an Salsa; also composes and performs live piano regularly for Silent Cinema Galway.
Recent collaborations include dancer Aneta Dortová, composers Mila Maia, Jamie Toomey, Rodney Owl, The Curly Organ, choirs Voice of Galway, Galway Baroque singers and St George’s Choir.
ERNESTO INOUYE / Piano
He began to play music on his grandmother’s piano and listened to his mother play throughout his childhood at home. Does he still remember the sonorities of those old polychrome and yellowish scores, tangos, milongas, zambas, paso doble, that were stacked over the piano?
Ernesto Inouye is an Argentinean pianist and accordeonist. He began taking piano lessons at the age of eight at the Instituto Promúsica de Rosario. Later he studied classical piano under pianists Adrián Pistono, Víctor Cortés and Víctor Parma. He began his career as a tango pianist in the Orquesta Típica Carlos Quilici (2010), and soon after formed the tango duo Vito Sputnik with bandoneonist Agustina Taborda. He was the pianist of the tango treo Mercurio (2014), of the rock band Sergio Ivanovich Orquesta (2016) and of the instrumental quintet La doble trampa mortal (2021-2023). In 2016 he composed the soundtrack for the animated series Verdadera Verdad, directed by Andrés Almasio, in collaboration with Lautaro Vial. As an accordionist, he was part of the duet Billy Pilgrim (2014), the circus orchestra Sarrasani (2015) and collaborated on the album Vitrales (2018) by Tomás Boasso. For the last ten years he has been working as a music tutor, teaching piano and accordion. Ernesto is a graduated Professor of Literature from the National University of Rosario. In addition to his music activity, he heads the ōmachi publishing house.