sunday 16 april 2023
at 19.30

concert

Andrea Grossi Blend 3 + Beatrice Arrigoni

songs and poems

Beatrice Arrigoni  voice
Manuel Caliumi  alto saxophone
Michele Bonifati  electric guitar
Andrea Grossi  double bass, compositions

Songs and Poems is a project on the sounds of words. An exploration of the "voices" of some of the greatest poets.

The quartet unites Blend 3, Andrea Grossi’s trio with Manuel Caliumi and Michele Bonifati, with the voice of Beatrice Arrigoni and finds its own personal dimension within a sound world generated by the fusion of European traditions of the 20^th century, starting from improvised music and European jazz, through contemporary music, to echoes of progressive rock, noise and ambient. One aspect of this group’s research is based on the relationship between the human voice and instruments, in particular the instrumental use of the voice and the interpretation of vocal inflections and possibilities on the instruments. The compositional architecture of poetic text may also evoke that of musical writing, avoiding a constant coloristic evocation in favour of a deep research, based on structural affinities: abstract episodes and visionary flavour are mixed with more precise and scientific interventions. Each poet, Emily Dickinson and E. E. Cummings in this case, corresponds to a different compositional style aimed at highlighting and commending the uniqueness of each author.

photo: Erica Mela Magagnato

Brief history of the group

Blend 3 was born in January 2017 and debuted the same year at the International Jazz Day on the stage of the Casa della Musica in Parma: it would be the first concert in a long series that would see them perform continuously in various Italian seasons, festivals and clubs including Ground Music Festival, ParmaJazz Frontiere Festival, and Roccella Jazz Festival.

In 2018 the band recorded their debut album, Lubok (We Insist! Records), which was released the following year and positively received by critics and public.

In the same year, the trio won the I-Jazz New Generation Jazz 2019 award and Andrea Grossi was listed in the Top Jazz Best New Italian Talent 2019 in the magazine Musica Jazz. 

The core of Blend 3 is also open to possibilities of expansion. From this point of view, new formations are born, such as Songs and Poems. A quartet originally with Gaia Mattiuzzi, it currently sees in Beatrice Arrigoni the ideal voice to continue the trio’s research. The group made its debut with two concerts in 2019 at the Lyrico Festival at the Teatro Comunale in Bologna and at the Teatro Coccia in Novara during the European Jazz Conference and subsequently performed at the Iseo Jazz Festival 2021, in the Mo.Ca Suona Next season in Brescia and at the Teatro Alighieri in Ravenna during a musical marathon in memory of the great photographer Roberto Masotti.

Blend Orchestra, was born as an ensemble of 12 elements and debuted at the ParmaJazz Frontiere Festival 2017, subsequently releasing the album Four Winds (We Insist! Records) in 2020.