Festival Boreal returns to Los Silos from 16 to 20 September for its 19th edition, with the concerts on Friday 18 and Saturday 19. Friday opens at 17:00 on the Explanada del Parking del centro histórico de Los Silos; Saturday moves into the Casco histórico. Between the two nights the programme reaches from Soweto and Ayacucho to Bogotá and Tamanrasset.
Friday, on the esplanade
BCUC are a seven-piece from Soweto, together since 2003; eleven languages run through their singing, over a traditional whistle, percussion and guitar. Quechua is the language Renata Flores raps in, and the Ayacucho singer runs Andean music through hip-hop and trap. Closer to home, Jable — Jela and Cristina Mahelo — builds on Canarian folk roots, and its line-up stays open to other island musicians.
Saturday, in the old town
Aterciopelados headline Saturday's bill. The Bogotá band, fronted by Andrea Echeverri and Héctor Buitrago, is marking thirty years of La Pipa de la Paz — the 1996 album produced by Phil Manzanera and nominated for a Grammy in 1998 in the Latin rock or alternative album category. Their album Genes Rebeldes returned to that category in 2026. Daddy G, a co-founder of Massive Attack, appears as a DJ set rather than with the group. Imarhan are a Tuareg band from Tamanrasset, in southern Algeria, and carry electronics alongside the guitar.
Around the concerts
The edition does not stop at the concerts: it also carries workshops, family activities, a dance residency, an exhibition and the Premio Boreal. The line-up and its split between the two days are confirmed.