An essay that accompanies us, with competence and acumen, in the discovery of an unpublished and still little-known Franco Battiato, in whom we find, however, all those traits of creativity, foresight and genius that we have come to love in his songs.
Even those who are not classical music fans know and love Bach, one of the world's most listened-to composers, whose music has moved different epochs and cultures. And anyone has danced at least once to a piece by Prince, who mixed black music, funk, dance and pop, creating entirely new and unique sounds. But what do these two great interpreters of their time have in common? Both determined genuine turning points in the history of music.
What are we listening to today? Not the usual. Walking through classical music, jazz, blues, rock, pop, dance, funk, soul, folk, hip-hop, world, Italian music, electronic, rap and more, Carlo Boccadoro recommends a record for every day of the year, offering us a 365-degree look, so to speak, at the world of sounds, with records chosen according to the calendar, the climate, anniversaries or more simply the mood, alternating as much as possible between the different genres with a tight and discursive pace, aimed as always at the uninitiated.
What records are absolutely essential to understand what a wonderful experience jazz is? Through the analysis of individual records Carlo Boccadoro offers a series of tips a series of tips to help us navigate our way through this potted universe and at the same time outlines its particular "history" ranging from New Orleans dixieland to contemporary jazz, broken down into instrumental categories: pianists, singers, trumpet soloists, sax soloists, large orchestras...
Internet has produced a revolution in the world of musical composition, all over the world. The ability to experience on one’s own computer, in real time, musical languages deriving from any geographical latitude and any past or present age, has completely remixed the very concept of composing, opening up to musicians of the young generations possibilities of stylistic mixtures and sonic hybridizations that were quite unthinkable only twenty years ago.
Shortilisted Premio Strega 2018
“Once upon a time there was the world. In the world, there was a city where it rained three hundred days a year. The city was called Seattle, in the westernmost part of the United States of America. To this city came a surfer from San Diego, an avid fan of the Who and the Ramones. In this surfer there was a soul. In this soul, there was the spirit of an era... If it were a fairytale it would begin like this.”
«Unfortunately for the theatre, it is sometimes necessary for poets and composers to have the talent to create neither poetry nor music». So wrote Giuseppe Verdi, in a famous letter to Antonio Ghislanzoni, the librettist of Aida. Neither poetry nor music. Where, then, are we to find a key that will help us understand the works of a great man of the theatre like Verdi himself?
For many, contemporary classical music is something foreign and distant, and when it is then defined as "cultured music," it is easy to turn away from it and judge it as hostile. But the opposite can also happen: what seems listenable, or even enjoyable, is not considered "classical music" or is excluded from academia. As was sometimes the case with the eleven composers Carlo Boccadoro wanted to interview, so that everyone – public and critics alike – could get to know them better.
Carlo Boccadoro, composer and conductor, makes immortal masterpieces resonate for us, born from the simplicity of 7 notes and still able to move audiences around the world. Reading age: 10 and up.
All the villagers of Notina love music, and they include some really odd, whimsical characters engaged in a wide variety of adventures: installers of rainbows, judges who put on private concerts for the local cats, nocturnal card-players in air balloons, a kangaroo with rock music blaring in its headphones, cows that try to dance, a cockerel that can change the colour of trees with the sound of its voice, shopkeepers who amuse themselves inventing weird musical instruments, people who buy silent gramophone records, children who take a double bass for walks around town, teachers who set thei