I’m really pleased with this shot I took in June… Irene Grandi and Stewart Copeland together for “The Witches Seed” rock opera.
More frames… And the full interview with Irene and Stewart in Plug n’ play magazine, December 2022 issue. ENJOY!
This bunch of frames well represents almost three years of work to present High in the Sky, the new album by Swiss composer and pianist Frank Salis.
Three years of music, pandemic, repeated lockdowns… Three years of Art Resistance that brought me and friends Nicolas Gilliet/NicOLAsound and Frank Salis to the stage of Teatro Sociale Bellinzona for the November 26 “High in the Sky” live show.
Three years of dreams that have finally come true.
Three years that have seen the birth of new artistic liaisons.
Three years of rhythms, melodies and lyrics. And teaser… and b&w jazz photos (Thanks to Paula Seegy & Matteo Pacini – Artespressione Milano)
(All shots taken with old FujiFilm X-Pro1 and Fujinon 18mm f2)
Years ago, thanks to my friend professor and trumpeter Fabrizio Fiume, I started photographing the jazz scene.
Years later I continue to photograph the world of jazz and build relationships with very special artists on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
In a few days in Bellinzona a new musical-photographic project dedicated to jazz will kick off with friends producer Nicolas Gilliet and composer Frank Salis.
I’ll be there as always with my camera in hand.
Music and art will save us.
FRANK SALIS’ HIGH IN THE SKY CD PRESENTATION
See you on Saturday 26 November, 8:45 PM, at the Teatro Sociale in Bellinzona! Event hosted by NiCOLAsound and Artextentiuon/Artespressione.
Collaborating with The Bluebeaters: it meant marrying my cultural background to that of the musicians and identifying a visual and sonic continuity between “me” and “them”.
PRESENT: Turin and Milan, today.
PAST: Coventry and London in the late Seventies.
A melting pot of… Sounds, experiences and dreams: all recorded in black and white… as it came.
CLICK after CLICK… Coventry and London… CLICK after CLICK… Milan and Turin… An exciting roundtrip. CLICK after CLICK… The Bluebeaters and… The soul of The Specials…
A bunch of shots taken in April during Manuel Agnelli‘s studio session for new solo album “Ama il prossimo tuo come te stesso” (In stores September 30, Island Records/Universal Music Italia)
When the Soul focuses… The lights dim to leave room for the flow of music…
My b&w portrait of friend best-selling and award-winning Irish crime writer Sam Millar on Editions Métailié “All Stars 2022” red band.
The members of f50 are delighted to announce LONELINESS – Photographic Dialogues with Places/Non-Places, our first group exhibition as part of the Milan Photofestival 2022. The show is curated by Matteo Pacini and hosted by Paula Nora Seegy at Artespressione gallery.
Participating in this show are Mahesh Balasubramanian (India), Matteo Ceschi (Italy), Steve Coleman (UK), Keith Goldstein (USA) and John Meehan (UK).
From the official press release for the exhibition (by Matteo Pacini):
“In the current complex historical moment, pandemic and post-pandemic scenarios have expanded the spectrum of what the French philosopher and anthropologist Marc Augé defines as ‘non-places’, i.e. impersonal spaces with less and less identity in which people circulate as anonymous entities intersecting without entering into a relationship. Interactions are driven by a frenetic desire to consume, accelerate and concentrate daily activities.
This condition, typical of places such as shopping centres, highways, stations and airports, pushes users to feel at ease thanks to the standardization of spaces. The similarity makes them feel familiar all over the world wherein the common experience of users creates an illusion that social differences are flattened. Advancing globalization risks dragging more and more shared spaces of our cities into these dynamics, whereby common spaces loose their identity becoming ‘non-places’. This trend reflects more a mass inner condition than the unexpected consequence of a short-sighted commercial or urban strategy.
In the ‘non-places’ we are at the same time participants and strangers, strangers in a no man’s land, a land that in any case feels inexplicably ours. The reference to Marc Augé is evident in the choice of the title ‘Loneliness’, solitudes, and in the willingness of the members of the collective f/50 The International Photography Collective to explore the concept of ‘non-belonging’ in photographic research aimed at physically recording the ‘personal-impersonal’ dichotomy through a series of interpretations of reality in different parts of the world.”
The exhibition will be open from 16 to 30 September 2022, from Tuesday to Saturday from 12.00 to 19.00. For visits by appointment call +39 329 9648086 or email artespressione@gmail.com.
Waiting for Stewart Copeland’s The Witches Seed première at Tones Teatro Natura (Oira Crevoladossola, July 22 and 23), you can read a preview of the interview with Mr. Copeland and singer and actress Irene Grandi which will appear in the autumn in the Swiss musical magazine Pnp. The soprano Maddalena Calderoni (artistic director of The Witches Seeds) and Veronica Granatiero will play alongside Irene Grandi the songs written by iconic Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders.
From rock music to Opera. And what’s more, an Opera realized in Italy, the country of Opera. Stewart, what can you tell us?
SC: Writing and composing an opera in Italy is a dream, a daydream, it’s the best I can aspire to, it’s the dream that comes true. The Witches Seed is a rock opera? Mmmm, maybe it’s a “rockopera”… Maybe a “ropera”… it sounds better, don’t you think so? Something partly new.
Opera combines music and words but does so with a different approach than the pop(ular) song. What was your approach for The Witches Seed?
SC: Language is melody, any language is a melody in its most intimate essence. Music, if you notice, helps dialogue. The music guides everything, music is a powerful storyteller, and it’s always the music in a dialogue that passes and filters good and bad feelings. This is an experiment, I admit it, an attempt to bring rock music and a rock mood into Opera and perhaps bring young people and rock audiences closer to “cultured music”, to Opera.
Irene, on what occasion did you meet Stewart for the first time?
IG: I met Stewart Copeland just when The Witches Seed was in preparation and I must say that he has a truly sunny character, full of interests and vitality. Stewart is a vibrant person, a person who has a beautiful relationship with creativity, a man who wasn’t just satisfied of the success achieved with the Police but always wanted to evolve his music and art.
How did you find yourself interpreting the lyrics written by Chrissie Hynde for the Opera?
IG: I was delighted to interpret the songs written by Chrissie Hynde, a singer and composer I love very much, since her beginnings with the Pretenders. I have always found Chrissie Hyde a great innovator, a woman and an artist able to bringing female rock towards a great diffusion on an international level with very distinctive and original songs. I must say that her voice, well, it resonates quite well with mine, as it has low tones that are a bit “unusual” for female vocal standards. So it was a gift, a huge gift, to be able to try my hand at her songs.
My b&w portrait of friend writer and playwright Sam Millar on the back cover of the new crime novel – Sul fondo del Black’s Creek – by Italian publisher Milieu Edizioni… SOON IN BOOKSTORES!
<The curiosity and creativity that Stewart Copeland expresses go far beyond having been “The Drummer of the Police”. This couple of shots taken by Matteo Ceschi reveal Copeland’s art in a clear and direct way, including a touch of madness.>
(Giovanni Pollastri, author of The Police. Many Miles Away, 2018)
TELLING WITH MY EYES 