Silent Cinema presents Oh So Pretty! Concerts -- a series of music and film events showing musicians and silent films from around the globe. We are beginning with Argentinian tango at its finest. Plus, the Argentinian silent film screening with live musical accompaniment by the same artists!

VITO SPUTNIK is an Argentinean instrumental tango duo formed by Agustina Taborda on bandoneón and Ernesto Inouye on piano. They are part of a new generation of tango musicians from the city of Rosario, which had its origins with the“Orquesta Municipal Escuela de Tango”, directed by Javier Lo Re. Their repertoire takes up the compositions of the great Orchestras of the first half of the 20th century: Osvaldo Pugliese, Juan D’Arienzo, and Carlos di Sarli, among others. These vigorous and passionate pieces were made for social dancing, and Vito Sputnik perpetuates this legacy. Since they came together in 2010, they have performed extensively around Argentina and its neighboring countries. In Rosario they participated in Encuentro Metropolitano de Tango (2012), Primer Festival Independiente de Tango (2012) and Ciclo Filosofía a martillazos (2016). In 2011 they were invited to take part in the 3rd Bandoneon Festival in Chapecó, Brazil; and in 2014 to perform at Campinas University, also in Brazil, alongside the singer and flutist Lucila Priotti. In 2017 Agustina settled in Galway, Ireland. During this time Vito Sputnik continued working on new arrangements and future performances. In 2022 they accomplished their first Ireland/UK tour, playing in Milongas (social dance events) “Flor de Milonga”, “El Festivalito”, “Edinburgh Tango Society”, and in various listening venues: The Cobblestone, Kava Courthouse, Mountshannon’s Church, Ah Sure Look It and De Burgos.

ERNESTO INOUYE is an Argentinean pianist and accordionist. 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. In 2010 Ernesto began his career as a tango pianist in the Orquesta Típica Carlos Quilici, and soon after formed the tango duo Vito Sputnik with bandoneonist Agustina Taborda. He remains active as a pianist and arranger with Vito Sputnik to this day. He was the pianist of the tango treo Mercurio (2014), of the rock band Sergio Ivanovich Orquesta (2016), and the instrumental quintet La doble trampa mortal (2021-2022). 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 Billy Pilgrim duo (2014), and 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 graduate Professor of Literature from the National University of Rosario. In addition to his music activity, he works as a literature researcher and editor.

AGUSTINA TABORDA is an Argentinean bandoneonist based in Galway, Ireland. In 2014 received her degree in Bandoneón from the Rosario National University, studying under the bandoneonist Alicia Petrollini. She received a Rosario Government Grant for taking private Lessons with the renowned bandoneonist Federico Pereiro in Buenos Aires (2012), and a Nacional University Grant to perform as a solo bandoneonist at different events from the University (2013). She specialized in instrument-taking workshops with Cholo Montironi, Daniel Binelli, and Rodolfo Mederos, among others. In 2017 Agustina was Invited to represent the Rosario National University in Morroco, playing bandoneón in the Hispano – Luso Institut, Mohammed V University. After moving country to relocate in Ireland, she received a Bursary from Galway Arts Council (2019) to work on her first solo album “I bhfad ar shiúl” (released in 2020), and a second one in 2022 to work on her second solo álbum in the process: La Reina: Dissection. She formed part of numerous tango ensembles and original music projects. Some of them are “Vito Sputnik”, “Orquesta de Senioritas”, “Orquesta Escuela de Tango”, “Orquesta el Arrastre”, “Duelo Criollo”, “Quinteto Gabriel de Pedro”, “Bajomundo”, “May fly to the moon” and “Rodney Owl”.

THE SCREENING OF THE 1926 ARGENTINIAN SILENT MOVIE WITH VITO SPUTNIK`S LIVE ACCOMPANIMENT - La Vuelta al Bulin (Back Home) is a silent short comedy directed by José A. Ferreyra, never before presented in English to the worldwide community of film lovers. It is possible thanks to Ernesto Inouye and Charlie Brady who translated the captions. During the event, Ernesto and Agustina from Vito Sputnik accompanied the screening with their fantastic music.

Apparently, Ferreyra made this short film to be exhibited in a play by Álvaro Escobar, who appeared in many of his films. The story is a comic variation of a tango called almost the same - “De vuelta al bulín” - with lyrics by Pascual Contursi and music by José Martínez, recorded by Gardel in 1919: “Percanta que arrepentida / de tu juida / has vuelto al bulín, / con todos los despechos / que vos me has hecho, te perdoné… (…) La carta de despedida / que me dejaste al irte, / decía que ibas a unirte / con quien te diera otro amor. / La repasé varias veces / no podía conformarme / de que fueras a amurarme / por otro bacán mejor”. The result not only continues to be funny, but it also serves as an irreplaceable testimony of how Ferreyra recreated the slums in his fiction. The film was supposed to be lost, but a nitrate 35 mm print was preserved by the Museum of Film Pablo Ducrós Hicken, and identified by Paula Félix-Didier and Fernando Martín Peña, with the collaboration of Rubén Santerio from Cinecolor Lab. In 2009, the Buenos Aires Independent International Film Festival financed the creation of an internegative, from which this version resulted.* 

^{* Source: Cinemargentino.com}