Sunday 28th February, Meet our 2021 Composers, Apollonio Maiello
Tonight is the last day of introducing our wonderful 2021 composers with the Composer, Pianist and Improviser Apollonio Maiello.
The first time I came across Apollonio's work was back in 2019 when Animo were starting our 'new music project' and we were looking for composers who would be a good match to write for us. We had over 40 composers apply and of those we did not select, a few were put on my "favourites" shelf for another day. Well, 2021 was "another day" and we couldn't be happier that Apollonio accepted the commission!
The collaboration with Apollonio has already started after last week's Zoom meeting. Apollonio has asked if we have any musical toys lying around. That's the most wonderful "homework" I've ever had to do! He said that he was looking for a particular sound. I can see the connection with one of the recent works Apollonio has just finished writing in 2020, ‘Artisans’ for four toy pianos, (Comissionsed by the Horizonkwartet).
Apollonio is above all else a highly skilled piano improviser "As a pianist he has been awarded prices at the ‘’Steinway&Sons Jazz-Piano Preis 2016 Stuttgart’’ & the ‘’Nationaler Yamaha Jazzklavier Wettbewerb 2017’’."
In his own words: he "juxtaposes aesthetic elements from a lot of genres. By collaborating with renowned artists both in music and the performing arts he has appeared as composer and pianist on festivals all around the world such as the Felicja Blumenthal Festival in Tel Aviv (Israel), the Festival des Théâtre Jeune Public des Centre Dramatique National in Strasbourg (France), the Venezia Jazz Festival, the Teatro grande di Brescia (Italy), the Festival Barocco Alessandro Stradella (Italy), Stony Brook University (New York) and the Heidelberger Schlossfestspiele (Germany)."
The type of work we can look forward to in our collaboration with Apollonio can be seen here (this was the video that convinced me that this is the type of composer Animo could really benefit from working with). Take a look at this video; it will transform the way you perceive music, musicians, composers and contemporary music!
So, here we are!
Four completely different composers all bound by the same principals: inclusive of all styles, free of labels, improvisation-based development of ideas, absorbing the world and its sounds without prejudice ('anything goes' attitude), thinking outside the box, happy with tonality (just because it's contemporary it doesn't have to be atonal), being true to their voice.
We are ready for the next stage in Animo's 'new music project'. We will be performing all four works live (not just as live-streams but in front of an audience) and record them for our third album: ANIMO three.
We really hope these collaborations will help us grow more as musicians and perhaps discover parts of our musicality we didn't know were there. We will aim to share videos of our collaborations during the next few months.
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