The Pink Floyd in 1973 published this immortal piece of music.

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then the one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it’s sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in the relative way, but you’re older
And shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone the song is over, thought I’d something more to say

Home, home again
I like to be here when I can
When I come home cold and tired
It’s good to warm my bones beside the fire

Far away, across the field, tolling on the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
And hear the softly spoken magic spell

Last month I performed Georg Friedrich Händel’s Messiah, together with Coro Polifonico Santo Spirito. This was my second time, first being in 2004.  It is believed that it took Händel just 24 days to compose this impressive oratorio but the vocal score is more than 300 pages long so – after five years – I had to study it again.

Like all great music, Messiah is easy to appreciate for anybody but then, when you have the opportunity to listen more carefully or to spend some time reading the score, you start to also appreciate the sophisticated structure and the musical inventions that lie behind it.  Take for example this famous line from the fifth movement.  The text says Thus saith the Lord of Hosts; Yet once, a little while and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land.  Look at how the word shake is described in music with a sequence of fast vibrating notes, shaking from the bottom up to the Heaven, which is at the top of the line followed by the Earth at the bottom again.

This way of composing is called word painting.  The idea is that you can use music to describe the meaning of the words being sung and Messiah makes extensive use of this technique.  In fact Messiah is one of the examples most used when explaining what word painting is.

Another good example is in the 22nd movement: And with his stripes we’re healed.  The main theme is C A D E with a dissonant interval on the last two notes corresponding on the words his stripes.  If you look better at the notes and try to connect C-E and A-D you will see this is a cross.  Every time the theme kicks in, we can see like a whip hitting the chest of Jesus and cutting through his flesh.  If the conductor wants to highlight this effect even more he can ask the choir to indulge on the consonant group str, making the actual note a little delayed.  Of course after the cross we are healed lies on a rising scale that, like a resurrection, will save us all.

I could go ahead and show you all the tricks I found but at the end of the day they are not important.  The important thing is how beautiful is this music when you listen to it and the warm and powerful feelings it can convey.  After silence what comes closer to express the inexpressible is music.

In Ferrara I used to sing in Coro Polifonico “Santo Spirito”, where we performed mostly baroque sacred music. I was very proud of that hobby, that allowed me to sing in prestigious theaters together with famed orchestras and world-class directors. Unfortunately when I moved to Florence I had to give up on this activity and I missed it a lot.   I tried to look for something similar in my new location but couldn’t find anything that matched my time budget and my taste.

For three long years Caterina tried to have me join The Pilgrims, a gospel choir.  I went to see one of their concerts and I liked it but, you know, jumping from Mozart’s Requiem to Happy Days is a big leap and I didn’t feel like I could do it.  Luckily enough, a few months ago Caterina eventually convinced me to give it a try and… it’s great!  I ended up joining their group – so now I am a Pilgrim – and already performed in five concerts!

What makes The Pilgrims great is not the songs we sing, even if there are some really good.  It’s not the musical skills, even if we sing everything by heart and the soloists have amazing voices.  It’s not the red tunic and the choreography we make dancing on the stage.  What makes it great are the choir members.  They are very energetic, friendly, inclusive and I have lots of fun with them!  And when you have fun performing the attendance has fun as well, which by the way is the goal of our performances.

I’m very thankful to Caterina for all the fun and the emotions I got in the concerts and for everything else that will come!  Damn, if only I joined them three years ago…

A mere few months after I’ve enjoyed The Final Four at the Birdland in Manhattan, yesterday I’ve had the opportunity to listen again to one of the most important jazz players and composers worldwide, this time at the Jazz Club (A.K.A. Il torrione) in Ferrara. Steve Kuhn played in a trio, together with Billy Drummond (drum) and David Finck (bass).

Kuhn, 68, is considered one the living giants of piano jazz. In his career he made several recordings and worked with Kenny Dorham, Stan Getz, Joe Henderson, Art Farmer and John Coltrane. Finck worked with Dizzy Gillespie, Aretha Franklin, Sinead O’Connor, Natalie Cole, Rod Stewart, Herbie Hancock, Al Jarreau and George Michael. Drummond worked with Sonny Rollins, Pat Metheny and many others. All in all, this can be well considered a world class trio.

Their energetic and yet personal interpretation of some jazz standards together with the amazing setting of a medieval bastion made an outstanding concert. At the beginning they didn’t find the right way to blend together, but then the more they played the more they felt as one, building a balanced dialog among instruments and a yielding more fun at every song.  Kuhn caressed the keyboard with elegant touch and logical digressions, Drummond beat the drums like an unstoppable syncope machine while Finck glued everything together using different timbers and techniques (pizzicato, bow).

I love concerts at torrione: it’s an awesome place for this kind of music. I mean, it’s not as famous as the Birdland, but the room is inside an original bastion, part of the historic city walls, and has a wonderful acoustics and a fuzzy warm feeling. The guys who run that place are great and brought to Ferrara a number of high caliber international stars. In the last few years, among many many others they got Steve Grossman, Lou Donaldson, Ray Mantilla, Irio De Paula, George Cables, Jim Snidero, Red Holloway and Al Foster.

Local public is very warm but not always makes the concert sold-out as the greatness of the names who are on schedule would deserve. For example at the Birdland I had to go through a 40 minutes line before getting in despite the Final Four being on schedule twice per night for a full week, but yesterday night there were several free seats at torrione. Oh well, they don’t realize what they lost.

Last time I’ve been in New York, one night Ale brought us to Ludlow Street. Ale is a fan of Lower East Side, and I definitely approve his taste. That area is filled with strange and interesting places, for both dining and having fun. That night Ale brought us first to the Back Room (which I already knew, maybe I’ll talk about this in a different post) and then to Mehanata, a Bulgarian bar and dance floor.

You have to know it in advance, cause there’s no hint from outside. No name on the street, just a small door no different to an normal entrance to apartments. When you’re in, you find yourself in a bar room, brick-and-stone raw walls, amazing psychedelic lights, high-tech but retro at the same time. Do you remember those mirror spheres that were so common in the 70s? Same concept but made with LEDs, or maybe Lasers. Strange bottles are aligned behind the barman and people left Cyrillic messages on the restroom walls.

Downstairs, a crowded improvised dance floor with a DJ playing Balkan-punk-folk-gipsy-rock-ish stuff and people dancing like crazy, not the least afraid to show everybody their hormonal level, girls included. On the lower bar a board says “Get naked, get a free shot” and I guess somebody actually does every now and then. Everybody knows the songs they’re playing (unbelievable), so they sing out loud while dancing. It looks like one of the resident DJs, probably the local hero, is Eugene Hütz (the man in the picture), which by the way is Alex in Everything Is Illuminated.

As a girl told me, the place is “totally unpretentious” and you feel like you could do anything, like you shouldn’t care about what people think of you. You just get in the flow, dancing and screaming and teasing girls and having huge quantity of fun! Thank you Ale!

Last time I’ve been in Rio de Janeiro I spent my best night at Rio Scenarium, a sort of samba dance floor with real Brazilian live music and a stunning choreography right in the center of Lapa, the historic center of ancient Rio. During daylight, this place is a huge antiquarian’s shop three floors high, with all sorts of things hanging from the walls and from the roof. At night, two thousand people easily fit in to have fun, dance, drink caipirinha and meet people.  Last year this was declared as one of the top 10 bars worldwide by The Guardian.

The setting is so surreal that I first I was speechless, like I were in a different time-space.  Colors everywhere, strange things surrounding joyful people, wonderful traditional music, party atmosphere.  Definitely a must if you happen to travel to Rio.

This week Ferrara celebrates the 20th Buskers Festival. For seven days straight, every night the medieval town center will be invaded by a few hundred street performers coming from all over the world and playing the most amazing instruments and music styles. It’s like the whole town became a giant stage 50 acres wide, surrounded by monuments and typical shops and shared by many parallel concerts. If all those performances were to be executed one after the other, they would continue uninterrupted for over 100 days.

I’m lucky enough to be currently on vacation, so in past few days I have walked the city center several times. Walking through the massive crowd is usually exhausting, not to mention finding a good spot where you can actually see artists in addition to hear them, but since this week the weather has been so-so, there was less people than normal and this helped. The problem is there’s so much to see that I’m completely overwhelmed. I’d like to give attention to many more artists but you either stop listening something or you wander all night without actually listening anything, which is what I want to avoid.

Among the many artists that I have appreciated so far, the most impressive are Gabriel Delta and the Hurricanes from Argentina (latin blues, swing, r&b with Stevie Ray Vaughan influx), The Fellowship of the Strings from Australia (celtic folk, sort of Loreena McKennit meets Abba), Erika Biavati & the Clan from Italy (blues, Mina and more great female voices), Lou-d Cage from Italy (percussions, including improbable home-made instruments and experimental stuff, very funny), The Moonlovers from Belgium (rockabilly), Gitárduál from Hungary (classical music with two acoustic guitars).

See Fabio’s photo gallery for more beautiful pictures.

Last summer in Haarlem (The Netherlands) I attended a concert of a group that back then was named Mayday. Since I loved their music I even bought their CD and now I believe I have the one and only copy in the whole Italy! Recently I visited their website and discovered they changed their name in Fifth Lane, apparently because they had a trademark conflict. The problem is, Fifth Lane was taken as well! I sincerely hope they won’t be forced to change name again. Guys good luck! See you in Firenze for your next European tour

In the global village of Internet days choosing a good name for a product, a band name or a blog site is very hard. There is an good chance you hit somebody who chose the same before you. I think in a few years trademarks contextualized in hierarchies (such as internet TLDs) will become commonplace. At that point will be completely normal to call a group mayday.nl and that will not collide with mayday.us. Basically I’m theorizing the merge of trademarks and DNS system, but maybe to get there first we have to make DNS more fair and trustworthy, e.g. by removing any ties to US Administration and to local governments in general.

A great weekend in NYC. On Saturday I walked across the Brooklyn bridge and then spent the night at the famous Birdland. Yes, that one, the one that takes the name from Charlie “the bird” Parker, where John Coltrane recorded Live at Birdland and several other kings of jazz played.

On stage there were “The final four”: Javon Jackson (sax), Steve Kuhn (piano) Buster Williams (bass) Al Foster (drums).  Eighty bucks well spent (with dinner and one bottle of great Bordeax).

Was quite a bit I didn’t attend a concert and I’m a big fan of J.S.Bach, so tonight I was eager to go to the event at Santo Stefano al ponte.

After a wonderful performance of Air on a G string, the Academic Chamber Orchestra SKC University of Nis proposed Cantata BWV51 Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen. The soprano was very excited and lost attacks, lagged behind and ultimately appeared out of context. Watching director Milena Injac (a woman!) while she desperately tried to let her catch up was real fun.

Next was a very good Doppio Concerto BWV1060. I had never heard this one and was a nice suprise, expecially the bright and joyful 1st and 3rd movement.

Last came the well known Brandeburg concerto no.5 BWV1050. Despite the harpsichord Rossella Giannetti had probably never played with this orchestra before (and the fact was quite evident) I liked the performance.