Songs
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- country:Italy
- region:Mongolia
- style(s):Mediterranean, World Jazz
- label:Materiali Sonori
- type:Trio
- gender:male, female
- instrumentation:vocal, electronic, woodwind, lute, guitar
- artist posted by:Ikona Concerti
Line up
- Luigi Cinque (vocal and cuntu; clarinets; sax; yamaha digital sa)
- Stefano Saletti (bouzouki, oud, saz baglama, electric guitar, krake)
- Urna Chahar-Tugchi (vocals)
Links
"Persephone" is a new project and a CD from Luigi Cinque, Stefano Saletti and Urna Chahar-Tugchi, artists known for their ability to explore different languages and worlds.
The album (published by Materiali Sonori) takes us across seas and steppe lands on a journey from Central Europe to the Italian south, and then on to Africa and, with echoes of minimalism, to the East. The tale of “Persephone” is told through the sounds and voices of Cinque and Saletti, accompanied by the extraordinary Urna Chahar-Tugchi, a Mongolian who has lived in Germany, the UK, Egypt and France.
The CD, which blurs the boundaries between different labels and styles, is the result of an encounter between Luigi Cinque, a composer, author, instrumentalist, and performer whose work draws on the anthropology of music, musical writing, spoken word poetry and new applied technologies, and the musician and composer Stefano Saletti, connoisseur of the instruments and musical traditions of the countries bordering the Mediterranean.
Persephone - in the West at least - is an important female divinity. Abducted by the god Hades, she is goddess of both the Underworld and, for six months of the year, of the Earth where, together with her mother Demeter, she causes nature to bloom as she passes. For the lands around the Mediterranean, Persephone is a fundamental and sacred mythical figure, and her story is at the heart of this album.
The traditional string instruments of the Mediterranean played by Saletti (oud, bouzouki, saz baglama) as well as the electric guitar and electronics, are joined by Cinque's wind instruments, keyboards and live electronics (clarinet, sax, duduk and the Afro/druphad chant), to create an interplay between tradition and improvisation, that interacts with Urna's melodies. The result could be defined as new World Music, but also multi-instrumentalism, word rhythm, contemporary music, or classical chamber konzert. The album’s language is deliberately obscure, representing pure sound (melos) rather than meaning (logos), in a continuous and 'posthuman' evocation of myth. Above the myth soars the sublime voice of Urna Chahar Tugchi, originally from the "Steppes of Ordos", who graduated in singing and composition from the Shanghai Conservatory. Urna’s vocal range, which spans four octaves, has made her an international star.