Silvia Tarozzi & Deborah Walker - Canti di guerra, di lavoro e d‘amore

Digital

$7.00

$7.00

Silvia Tarozzi Deborah Walker 2020s Art Song First Release

Description

Silvia Tarozzi and Deborah Walker have emerged as one of the most interesting duos in contemporary improvised music. First introduced to Unseen Worlds through their performance on the Philip Corner recording Extreemizms: early & late, Tarozzi and Walker elevated recent recordings, Eliane Radigue Occam Ocean 3, Pascal Criton Infra, and Tarozzi’s own Mi specchio e rifletto to greatness. Their finely tuned sound makes even the most adventurous tones compelling.

With Canti di guerra, di lavoro e d‘amore the duo add folk music to their contemporary classical and improvised music roots, reinterpreting songs from their youth in rural Emilia that originated from the emancipation of working class women and the partisan Resistance in World War II, especially ones sung by choirs of female rice field workers, called Mondine or Mondariso. Their songs tell a story of hard, poorly paid work, love, the hypocrisy of society, protests, war, the challenge of working far from home, the violence of oppression and the need for political awareness. Following years of incorporating, reinventing, and transforming these songs within their practice, Tarozzi and Walker unlock emotional territory where their relationship with Emilia resonates in concert with other sounds and places.

Liner Notes

Silvia Tarozzi & Deborah Walker "Canti di guerra, di lavoro e d'amore", Notes, Lyrics and Translations

June 10, 2022

Track List

DIGITAL TRACK LIST

Country cloud (3:33)
La lega (Featuring Coro delle Mondine di Bentivoglio) (2:29)
Pietà l‘è morta (5:02)
Parziale (2:29)
Il bersagliere ha cento penne (3:19)
Il bersagliere ha cento penne (Featuring Ola Obasi Nnanna) (4:29)
Meccanica primitiva (4:19)
Dondina (6:03)
La campéna ed San Simòn - Ignoranti senza scuole (8:33)
Fa la nana (4:34)
Tita (3:12)
Sentite buona gente (5:05)

Credits

Silvia Tarozzi – violin, voice, bicycle bells
Deborah Walker – cello, voice, bicycle bells
Ola Obasi Nnanna – voice on track 6
Andrea Rovacchi – mbira on track 6

Artwork by Sun Pal: Lina Müller and Luca Schenardi

Thanks to: Our dear sister in music Ola Obasi Nnanna, Nigerian gospel singer, for her wonderful participation in this album. The Coro delle Mondine di Bentivoglio, for their support and gracious concession of the track “La Lega“, from their record “Con l’acqua alle ginocchia“ (Black Fading Records 2010). Andrea Rovacchi for his creative contribution while recording and mixing this album. Agnese Toniutti and Salotto Musicale del Friuli Venezia-Giulia, Claudio Rastelli and Amici della Musica di Modena, Eamonn Quinn and Louth Music Society in Dundalk, Alex Bruck and Casa del Lago in Ciutad de Mexico, Roberto Fabbi and Festival Aperto in Reggio Emilia, for hosting performances of Canti di guerra, di lavoro e d’amore, making it possible to this music to grow.

All the financiers of this recording project, for their amazing generosity: Ritaronne, Daniel and Renata, Rolando Gualerzi, Silva Marconi, Thierry Madiot, Sébastien Roux, Sandra Giura Longo, Chris Cutler, Maya Bongrand, Vincent Vedovelli, Yasoda Corleone, Lucia Biolchini, Martin Arnold, Laura Gilbert, Mauro Bertani, Scott Krafft, Greta Melcher, Émilie Girard-Charest, Paola Ligabue, Bernard Astié, Tim Parkinson, Silvia Donati, Fabrice Villard, Claudio Galli, Alessandro Ringressi, Nadia Nadalini, Nara Nadalini, Agnès Vesterman, Patrick Javault, Pascale Criton and two generous anonymous.

Recorded at Sonic Temple Studio in Parma, Italy, by Andrea Rovacchi
between September 28th and October 1st 2020. Mixed by Andrea Rovacchi, Silvia Tarozzi and Deborah Walker between March and April 2021. Mastered by Andrea Rovacchi in October 2021.
license

Press

The best tracks are those where Tarozzi and Walker themselves sing in combination with their own instruments, in ways that feel so personal and intimate, as if they are telling stories from the past that need to be told because there are lessons within that every new generation of people needs to know.

The Sound Projector

Tarozzi and Walker offer plenty of fire on their own, complementing their virtuosic string playing—which dissolves the boundaries between folk and experimental music—with stunning vocals, alone and in harmony. There’s a twined beauty and progressive spirits in these arrangements, which underline the continuing validity of the messages within these songs. The album includes some more bracing original material, but it all fits together with organic power. Essential stuff.

Peter Margasak, Bandcamp Daily

Tarozzi and Walker incorporate folk songs into the melodies they play, but the duo incorporate their approach to contemporary improvisation, with a plethora of extended techniques, scurrying lines, harmonics, altissimo playing and glissandos.

Cristian Carey, Sequenza 21

Still the most moving moment from any album this year is a few seconds on the second track of this album, 'La Lega'... It's cinematic, perhaps intentionally emotive, but who cares, because it is like the whole choir has been lifted from the lowly earth and is transcending into heaven on a cloud, a Renaissance painting in music; a sacred elevation of this working class women's music. Can't get over it, won't get over it.

Jennifer Lucy Allan, The Quietus

The Quietus' Albums of The Year 2022

The Quietus

This record is full of these moments of reflection, or lament, or the sadness of recognition; the flights of the heart and the toils of the mind.

The Quietus

freiStil, Magazin für Musik und Umgebung, November 2022

freiStil

They are songs about war, about work and about love - "Canti diguerra, di lavoro e d'amore". The two Italians give a voice (again) to the important role of women in this movement and bring their actions to the fore. Packing all this into a musical firework that just sparkles with pride and joy. The arrangements, with a wide range of sounds, which include epic choral singing as well as reduced loneliness. All of this with a tremendous intensity that goes deep under the skin.

freiStil

The combinations of the other instruments (violin and cello), and lots of varied vocal elements all add up to make a music that…is more musically developed than its predecessor, although with less use of modern technology…As a relatively new talent just making her mark on the international new music scene…it will be intriguing to hear where Silvia Tarozzi goes next.

Alan Freeman, AUDION

34 Great Records You May Have Missed: Spring/Summer" August 2022

Pitchfork

They sing in joyful, dense layers and dive into open spaces; it often sounds like they’re on an infinite feedback loop, each finding thrill and inspiration from the other. Walker and Tarozzi highlight the under-acknowledged creativity and virtuosity of women working together.

Allison Hussey, Pitchfork

In their various shared projects cellist Deborah Walker and violinist Silvia Tarozzi have become two of contemporary music's most impressive and rigorous string players, boldly erasing boundaries between notated music and improvisation

Julian Cowley, The Wire

With both original music from the duo and settings of older songs, this album conjures up the landscape of their region… Canti di guerra is an album about making links between musics, histories and genres, and is nothing short of wonderful.

Louise Gray, Internationalist

Rum Music For July" reviewed by Jennifer Lucy Allan

July 2022Link

There is a moment in proletarian struggle song 'La Lega' where, as the choir (the Coro delle Mondine di Bentivoglio) sing firm and in full voice like muscles flexed, strings pour in like mist under and around the women's voices, lifting them upwards as if they were all on a cloud transcending into the heavens.

Jennifer Lucy Allan, The Quietus

The Best Contemporary Classical on Bandcamp: June 2022" By Peter Margarsak

Bandcamp DailyLink

There’s a twined beauty and progressive spirits in these arrangements, which underline the continuing validity of the messages within these songs. The album includes some more bracing original material, but it all fits together with organic power. Essential stuff.

Peter Margasak, Bandcamp Daily

Field of Dreams”, Full Page Feature by Peter Margasak

Wire Magazine, June 2022

In their various shared projects cellist Deborah Walker and violinist Silvia Tarozzi have become two of contemporary music's most impressive and rigorous string players, boldly erasing boundaries between notated music and improvisation

Julian Cowley, The Wire

About Silvia Tarozzi

Silvia Tarozzi is a violinist, composer and improviser. The oral transmission of music and the form created through a deep immersion into the sound are traits of her musical research. She has been in a duo with Italian cellist Deborah Walker for about 15 years, and has been the violinist of the French ensemble Dedalus since 2006. She has closely collaborated with and performed work by composers such as Éliane Radigue, Pauline Oliveros, Pascale Criton, Cassandra Miller, Martin Arnold, Pierre-Yves Macé, Philip Corner.

Silvia started composing and improvising at the same time, starting from her experience as an interpreter and through a process of opening up to more creative musical approaches. In 2009 she began to write songs inspired by Italian poetress Alda Merini which became the album Mi specchio e rifletto.

She has been working with the French composer Pascale Criton since 2010 on the technical and expressive possibilities of a violin tuned in sixteenths of tone. From this research comes Circle Process for microtonal violin, which was presented at numerous international festivals. Since 2011 Silvia has also regularly collaborated with Éliane Radigue, becoming one of the main interpreters of her compositional cycle Occam Océan for acoustic instruments and creating numerous works ranging from the violin solo Occam II to chamber music, performing with many of Éliane’s interpreters.

Since 2011, Silvia has also coordinated, with Giovanna Giovannini, the activities of the children choir Piccolo Coro Angelico. This project focuses on vocal research and experimentation, bringing children to an open and creative approach to music since the beginning of their musical experience. We conceive that art is a inclusive concept that depends only minimally on technical competence and which instead helps children to develop their skills and talents.

About Deborah Walker

Italian cellist Deborah Walker is a new music performer and improviser based in Berlin. She is interested in multiple forms of music creation related to the exploration of sound and interaction with other art forms.

She has played at many festivals such as Tectonics, Italia Wave, ZKM, Centre Pompidou, and tours regularly in International venues and Festivals. She is a member of the French ensemble Dedalus and of the improviser orchestra ONCEIM. She has premiered solo works of composers like Pascale Criton, Éliane Radigue, Philip Corner and Phill Niblock. For more than 15 years, she has perfored regularly in duo with violinist Silvia Tarozzi. Their repertoire includes both contemporary and experimental works, as well as transcriptions of Italian traditional folk songs.

After receiving a Masters in Music and sound composition at the University of Paris 8, Deborah completed a PhD at the University of Lorraine on the work of Fluxus artists in Italy, with a focus on the American cellist Charlotte Moorman.

She released her first solo album, Starflux, in 2020 on the Elli Records label out of France.