Sonora Festival Arrives at Santa Ana Square
The Sonora Festival lands this weekend in the heart of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria at Santa Ana Square, promising two full days of live music. The artistic lineup places a strong emphasis on music made in the Canary Islands, offering a vibrant showcase of local talent. Friday, the 17th, will be dominated by urban, fusion, and ska sounds, while Saturday, the 18th, will shift gears to alternative rock, border rhythms, a blend of tradition and avant-garde, and organic house.
Free concerts and festival highlights
The concerts are free to enter from 6:00 PM until the venue reaches capacity, with the music kicking off at 8:00 PM on both days. The musical program is complemented by the screening of a compilation of audiovisual pieces between concerts. These videos summarize the events of the past year throughout the different phases of Sonora 2025, an edition that featured over 130 participating bands in the competition phase and a memorable final held in May at the Alfredo Kraus Auditorium in Las Palmas.
Friday’s lineup: Urban beats and ska vibes
The festival begins on Friday at 8:00 PM with the southeastern band Enac Ska, marking their first live performance in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria after a 27-year hiatus. This is a ska and reggae band with a punk and rock attitude, whose history transcended the islands. They return to the stage with the same conviction, attitude, and repertoire, now with a renewed lineup.
At 9:15 PM, it’s time for Liane, the second-place winner of Sonora 2025 and one of the most brilliant voices in the islands’ emerging talent scene. An urban artist who combines strength, sensitivity, and a mixed style that opens the doors to the soul. Each song is a journey, a story told with passion and authenticity. Liane is one of those figures with personality, presence, and an incredible ability to connect with her audience. As the runner-up of Sonora 2025, she promises to continue making her mark on Canarian music and beyond.
DJ Saot St, plus guests, one of the most representative names of the new Canarian urban scene, takes over the Santa Ana stage at 10:10 PM on Friday to heat up the square. A DJ and audiovisual producer, he has built a solid career in service of local talent, positioning himself as a meeting point between different generations and styles. His project “After Hour The Mixtape” (2023) was a milestone in the islands’ music: a compilation of 49 tracks and as many music videos that brought together nearly fifty artists from the archipelago, reflecting the breadth and maturity of the Canarian urban landscape.
La Pantera will unleash his highly anticipated show around 11:45 PM. La Pantera is the alias of Gran Canarian singer, rapper, and songwriter Sergio Aimar Castellano, a viral phenomenon with immense popularity on social media and hundreds of thousands of plays on video and streaming platforms. He is part of a new generation of singers who know how to play with the times they live in and the audience their music is intended for. He arrives at the Sonora festival with a handful of songs that have been building his story.
Saturday’s eclectic mix: From fusion to French funk
On Saturday, the Festival pivots between the house and funk of the French band Rinôçérôse, the alternative rock of Madrid’s Alcalá Norte, and the fusion proposals of Ale Acosta and O.M. Domínguez.
O.M. Domínguez, the winner of Sonora 2025, opens the concerts at 8:00 PM with a proposal that fuses urban rhythms, touches of island identity, and a unique storytelling style that guides listeners along the hidden paths of emotion.
Another Canarian artist, the producer and musician from Lanzarote, Ale Acosta, performs on Saturday at 9:00 PM with a project that fuses the old, the traditional music of the Islands, with new synthetic and dance horizons.
Around 10:25 PM, the Madrid band Alcalá Norte will deliver the live performance that has established them as a musical phenomenon on the national scene. Formed in Madrid in 2019 and after releasing an EP in 2020 and several singles, they published their first self-titled album in April 2024, which catapulted them to success by entering the Top 100 vinyl charts and Spotify’s Top 50 Viral chart. Their sound is hard to pigeonhole, mixing elements of post-punk, Britpop, and echoes of the “Movida Madrileña”.
Following them will be Rinôçérôse. This band from Montpellier, France, led by Jean-Philippe Freu (guitar) and Patrice Patou Carrié (bass), practices a form of house and funk with an organic pulse of guitars, bass, and drums, in addition to programming. They return to the Gran Canarian capital and to Sonora with the tour for their latest album, “Psychôanalisis,” which was released in October of last year. The album brings a band in excellent form back to the Island’s stages.
Festival organizers and collaborators
Sonora is an event organized by the Department of Culture of the Las Palmas de Gran Canaria City Council and produced by Salán Producciones, with the collaboration of the Culture Department of the Gran Canaria Council, the Government of the Canary Islands, and Cadena SER Las Palmas.
