I'm SO happy!! My shortfilm "Midsommar" has been selected again!! This time to participate to a Film Festival entirely dedicated to children and teenagers, the "Corporación Festival de Cine e Infancia y Adolescencia".
The festival will take place as of October 20th in some amazing venues.. too bad I can't go!
Soooo nice!
Wonderful piece of news for me, making me feel so emotional happy, and proud… Yje Chennai (Madras) International Women’s Short Film Festival in India selected Midsommar to be short listed as best shortfilm for their 2014 edition!
Tomorrow, October 6th, il will be screened together with the other 24 competing films.. I’m thrilled and delighted!
“Remind the gap” concert at the Roma Summer Jazz Festival, September 3rd, 2014
Maria Pia De Vito: voice
Claudio Filippini: piano, keyboards
Luca Bulgarelli: bass
Walter Paoli: drums
There are many gaps that the Empress of the Italian vocal jazz filled in with this precious gig at the Rome Summer Jazz Festival. Starting with being back in concert again with her band from Mind the Gap, her very refined album from 2009 that contained original compositions and covers, from Hendrix to Björk. And while we thought we had just paid the price of a concert ticket, we had instead the privilege of assisting to a reunion, and witness a vibrant joy that filled the stage with twinkling smiles, glances, gestures and playfulness.
An extraordinary woman, as well as a great musician: 16 albums in a 20-year career. And apparently, no desire—or need—to stop. Quite the opposite. This new album is decidedly in anything but a casual or minor key. Despite the unarguable crisis in the buying of non-digital formats in Scandinavia, Nyberg has created an object that really must be held in your hands, read, caressed. Without question, a double CD to be purchased, with its powerful graphics and artistry, thanks also to the photos by Miki Anaguris and illustrations by Matilda Ruta—a concept album that has much to say about the musical and almost metaphysical ability of one of the most important voices in the illustrious Scandinavian panorama.
Sometimes a country feeds on a reverse provincialism, taking for granted and thus nullifying the talents it possesses, that others experience and enjoy at full. Kekko Fornarelli belongs to those who are struggling to be recognized in Italy but on the contrary are loved abroad, where they make international tours. Hopefully this will not be the case for too much longer.
In his latest work, Outrush, Fornarelli expresses much more than a talent for piano playing: the composition is very powerful, new, innovative, free. Each piece a narrative that contains dozens of ideas, a succulent abundance that comes with each new listening without decreasing the smoothness of this album, that captivates you from the very start.
In the best new jazz Svenssonian path, Fornarelli with his fellow accomplished musicians (Giorgio Vendola on double bass and Dario Congedo on drums) creates a unique, innovative, happy world. Seven instrumental tracks and a sung one, so movingly interpreted by guest singer Roberto Cherillo, with whom Kekko has toured half the world.
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Finalmente online il mio più recente (ma sicuramente non l'ultimo) video per l'eccelso pianista svedese Daniel Karlsson (in questo caso per il suo trio, per l'album "Fusion for Fish"), a mio avviso il più bell'album del 2014! Ne siamo molto soddisfatti, è stato lungo e laborioso, girato in 3 set diversi in città diverse, in Veneto e a Stoccolma, con l'incognita Venezia che a giugno può essere veramente micidiale ma.. eccolo!
La GRANDISSIMA sorpresa è arrivata quando ho saputo che era stato scelto per venire presentato a Stoccolma alla serata di presentazione/lancio dei nuovi video musicali per la stagione, un evento importante che viene organizzato dalla IFPI, ente nazionale che si occupa di promozione musicale. Un ENORME onore per me, e sono felicissima per Daniel Karlsson perché è una rarità assoluta che la musica jazz venga selezionata per eventi di questo genere (pur essendo un genere adorato nel paese, parliamo sempre della nazione di Avicii e Lykke Li). Lui si merita questo molto molto altro, e lo avrà.
Sono felice di questo riconoscimento e anche del successo rapidissimo che sta avendo questo video (630 visualizzazioni in sei giorni per un video jazz sono tantissime!) non solo per me e i musicisti, ma anche per tutti gli altri artisti e professionisti che hanno contribuito a questo lavoro con passione contagiosa, e in primis alla mia grandissima amica e sorella Andreina Costa, che ha vinto ogni comprensibile inibizione per fare da sirena seminuda in una Venezia impacchettata di turisti. I ringraziamenti sono nei titoli di coda a parte Giulia Fazzi, che mannaggia a me mi è sfuggita! Ma il suo nome è nel testo sotto il video. Mi ha perdonata però, perché è sorella anche lei 🙂
Grazie a tutt@!
My latest (but not last!) video for the great Swedish pianist Daniel Karlsson, this time for his track Mrs Mermaid, again from the majestic album Fusion fo Fish, for me the best 2014 album. We are very happy and proud it it, it's taken quite some time to shoot and edit, with three differnet locations, two in Italy (Agordo and Venice) and one in Stockholm, to catch Andread Hourdakis, but we're thru!
The BIG surprise came from the fact that this video was selected by a Swedish organization within music industry called IFPI (http://www.ifpi.org/) to be hosted in Stockholm during the musical video kick-off for the coming season. It is a HUGE honor for me to have been picked, and I am very happy for Daniel Karlsson because it is a real rarity for jazz music to be selected for this presentation. He really deserves all this, and much much more.
I am delighten by this recognition and also by the fast success this video is obtaining (630 viewers in six days is quote a lot for a jazz video!), not only for me and the musicians, but also for everyone that passionately contributed to this work with contagious passion, above all my friend and sister Andreina Costa, who won all her understandable inhibitions to act as a half-naked mermaid in tourists-packed Venice. And my thank also to Giulia Fazzi, another true sister, whom I forgot to mention in the credits.. boooo on me…. but she is in the written credits below the video. She has apparently forgiven me though!
Thanks to all!
I was interviewed yesterday for the national Italian radio Radio 3 during a lovely program called Patagruel, unfortunately in Italian only!
A very solid, powerful and conscious debut by City Nights, Swedish band composed by some of the best and most requested Swedish jazz musicians from the younger generation. Andreas Hourdakis, to begin with, guitarist of Magnus Öström (Esbjörn Svensson Trio), Nils Jansson, the most interesting trumpet player of his generation, the great groover Martin Höper on bass, and Chris Montgomery on drums, with his rich and versatile punctuation.
The album touches and immediately goes beyond jazz rock, almost creating a new style, if one had to give a genre definition. Freedom from jazz and rock becomes the most distant point from both poles, making the fusion free from usual schemes. There are elements of rock, indierock, jazz and progressive, often used in an innovative and unprecedented, unexpected way. And the fantastic interplay resulting from the fusion of instruments and inspiration is really the alchemy that makes each piece interesting and easy to remember.
I turned 50 on the 22nd of August. I was feeling “worried” about this birthday in some ways, but it turned out to be the funnies, sweetest and most memorable I experienced in my life so far, with Daniel Karlsson releasing his new “Duo” album with genius Thomas Markusson on double bass, playing for me. And in the morning, as soon as I woke up, I read this interview that Karlsson released for Sweden’s most prominent daily newspaper, Dagens Nyheter, where he tells a lot about me and our partnership.
Best birthday ever 🙂
