Giovanni Sollima Biography
Born in 1962 to a musical family in Palermo, Sicily, Giovanni Sollima studied cello with Giovanni Perriera and composition with his father, Eliodoro Sollima, at the Conservatorio di Palermo. After graduating with honors, he went on to study cello with Antonio Janigro and composition with Milko Kelemen at the State University of Music and the Performing Arts Stuttgart and the Mozarteum University Salzburg. Sollima's music is under heavy influence from minimal music. His compositions are often characterized by modal melodies and repetitive structures. U.S. critic Kyle Gann has described him as a post-minimalist composer, noting his more varied and selective approach compared to American minimalist composers. In addition to this, Sollima is known for his unique style that freely blends a wide variety of musical materials, ranging in genre from classical, rock, jazz and pop to ethnic, including Middle Eastern, Mediterranean and African. He has performed with many great masters, including Claudio Abbado, Philip Glass and Yo-Yo Ma. In the U.S., Sollima has collaborated with Patti Smith. His "Violoncelles, Vibrez!" and "Spasimo" were used throughout Nightwatching, a Peter Greenaway film. In 2013 and 2014, he served as director, conductor and concertmaster for Notte della Taranta, an Italian music festival that attracted an audience of 130,000 people. In recent years, he has led a project called 100 Cellos.
Sollima has performed in a number of world-class halls, including:
Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Wigmore Hall, Sydney Opera House, Salle Gaveau, and International Music Academy Cologne
Sollima embraces diverse musical styles, including:
Bach, jazz, rock, contemporary, ethnic, including Middle Eastern and African
Sollima has performed with the world's top artists, including:
Yo-Yo Ma, 2Cellos, Philip Glass, Martha Argerich, Patti Smith, and Claudio Abbado
Sollima's career highlights:
The city of Milan commissioned him to compose the theme music for Expo 2015.
The clip of Sollima's "Terra Aria," produced by Director Lasse Gjertsen, was played back about 1.5 million times on YouTube.
He served as director for Notte della Taranta, an Italian music festival, whose attendance reached 130,000, for two consecutive years.
Giovanni Sollima "Terra Aria"
Giovanni Sollima, 2Cellos, Mischa Maisky " Thunderstruck " by AC/DC
ENRICO MELOZZI
composer, cellist, conductor and producer, was born in Teramo (Central Italy) in 1977.
In 1999 he became assistant of Michael Riessler, thanks to whom he began working with several important soloists of contemporary classical and jazz sphere, as Sabine Meyer, Vinko Globokar, Michel Portal, Terry Bozzio,Paolo Fresu.
In 2007 with his Sinfonia Concertante it is celebrated the reopening of the Cathedral of Teramo. In the same year he created the label Cinik Records, and begins collaborations as producer/arranger/conductor with important pop singers such as Sarah Jane Morris.
For its soundtracks he receives important awards in Italy and abroad, including the Best Foreign Language Award at the New York Short Film Festival with Il gioco by Adriano Giannini.
For the theater he writes music for shows staged at the Parco della Musica in Rome, the Greek Theatre in Syracuse and at the Piccolo Teatro in Milan. His ballet for big orchestra Pinocchio, commissioned in 2012 by theWest Australian Opera Perth, has been brought on tour the following year in Strasbourg, Colmar and Mulhouse by the Opera National du Rhin.
In 2012 he creates with the world renowned composer and cellist Giovanni Sollima the 100 Cellos project, which in its first five years of activity has organized his itinerant festival at the Teatro Valle in Rome, at the Triennale in Milan, in the Cathedral Square of Budapest, at the Teatro Regio in Turin, at the Ravenna Festival and at the Lucca Classica Festival.
In 2015 he founded the ‘Orchestra Notturna Clandestina’, a young team which is active at night, in the places more ‘off’ of the Italian capital, where is possible to create culture outside the box, implementing the innovative incentives of music in order to explore new frontiers. At the end of 2016 has been released with Decca the crossover album A Clandestine A Night in Rome.
In 2017 the Teatro Regio in Parma staged Il piccolo principe, the first lyric opera based on the famous novel The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.
ENRICO MELOZZI