Italian jazz star Federica Michisanti at Warehouse Theatre
By Rosalia David
ITALY is back on the Namibian cultural scene with the jazz concert ‘ItalJazz in Namibia’ – organised by the Italian Embassy in Pretoria – set to bedazzle the audience at Windhoek’s Warehouse Theatre on 4 October.
The Federica Michisanti Horn Trio is a new project of the talented double bass player and composer Federica Michisanti, who will be gracing the stage alongside her partners, Marco Colonna on clarinet and Francesco Lento on trumpet and flugelhorn.
Federica will take her bass out of its regular role as rhythm instrument, as the three musicians are set to play together in a counterpoint while constantly exchanging roles.
According to Warehouse Theatre spokesperson Ndiilo Nthengwe, the trio, with the support of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and the Musica per Roma Foundation, will tour the African continent and are also set to perform in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Nairobi, Brazzaville, Libreville and Addis Ababa in Ethiopia.
With the aim of blessing Namibian music lovers with a night of sensational jazz music and to keep open the Warehouse Theatre, which was threatened with closing down recently, the show will be free.
About the upcoming show Nthengwe said: “The compositions are played as one suite, no interruption between the tunes, they’re connected by free improvisations or improvisations on the structure of the compositions themselves and she takes her bass out of its regular role of rhythmic section, and the three instruments play together in a counterpoint, in a continuous exchange of roles.”
Federica Michisanti Horn Trio’s debut album, Silent Rides, was released in October 2018 and featured in the ‘album of the month’ section in the November issue of the magazine Musica Jaz. She also won the Best New Talent award at the 2018 Top Jazz critics’ poll organised by Musica Jazz magazine.
The previous year she was second in the 2017 Top Jazz New Talent category.
Towards the end of this year, she will record her new album with Parco della Musica Records, to be released early 2020.