Hernan Bartolozzi – The musicians of the orchestra are very honored by this new invitation from Tangopostale for its 2025 edition. It will be 16 years since our first visit to Toulouse, but our passion and energy remain intact! Thanks to the generosity and support of your programming, we can finally start our first tour since the passing of our master, Roberto Alvarez. Our musical project emphasizes certain basic principles.

First, the need to keep the Osvaldo Pugliese musical style alive, while adding our own personal touches. This has been Color Tango's raison d'être since the beginning, and it is clearly evident from our first album, "A toda orquesta," recorded in the Netherlands in 1989, which features the arrangements and compositions made famous by Pugliese's orchestra, but played with a new approach.

Then, we are very keen to keep the orchestra as a true unit of musicians who know each other, who rehearse together regularly, and who are committed to the same project.

Finally, each member must be able to contribute to the enrichment of our repertoire through suggestions for arrangements or compositions.

Based on the respect of these principles and, obviously, thanks to the arrival of Ramiro Boero among us in the position of first bandoneon, we feel ready to present the orchestra for the greatest pleasure of the tango public.

HB – Indeed, the orchestra's repertoire is enormous, and for this European tour we are preparing the classics of Pugliese which will be, as we know, eagerly awaited by milongueros and tango enthusiasts of all kinds, with themes taken from throughout the history of the orchestra and adding many new features.

For the concert in the auditorium on Thursday, July 3, we plan to include some new compositions created by the orchestra and which we are currently recording for release in 2025. For the Despedida celebration on Sunday, July 6, we will be playing our repertoire for the ball to the fullest with classics such as La Mariposa, La Yumba, Desde el alma and many more. Everything will be there! We will also pay tribute to our master Roberto Alvarez playing his most famous compositions Chacabuqueando, Maypa and Tango a Pugliese.

HB – When Roberto retired from the stage, we all got together to say that we wanted to continue the orchestra after his departure. That's when the name Ramiro Boero stepped down to take his place. Ramiro's integration was a great success! In addition to being a great bandoneon player, he is also an arranger and composer. But the most important thing is his way of fully investing himself in the project, putting all his experience and his great work capacity at the service of the orchestra. His arrival gave us the much-needed impetus to continue without Roberto, who was our conductor for decades and our teacher to all. Over time, we found a way to function without a single conductor, sharing the artistic direction among ourselves.

HB – Audience tastes evolve, and that's perfectly normal. What matters to us is staying authentic and playing a style that reflects who we are. We've never played this music for purely commercial reasons; we do it because it's what we love to do. For us, it's not about reducing the figure of Pugliese to its catalog of successful tangos, but above all to try to be creative and promote our own musical language, composing and arranging new music with the language of tango that expresses the voice of our generation. This is what Pugliese did in his time, and that's what we're trying to do. It takes a lot of time and development. We've been playing together for many years, and we're able to draw our own musical conclusions. We hope the audience will feel the same way when they listen to our new themes.

HB – Greetings from all members of Color Tango. We'll see you in Toulouse in July!