The Italian Embassy in Wellington and the Italian Cultural Institute in Sydney are pleased to announce that the Italian musician and composer Luciano Chessa is touring Oceania including the Cook Islands, New Zealand and Australia.
We report in detail about the Australian event on another page on this website; with regards to the Cook Islands and New Zealand, the tour is structured in three separate events.
First event – TE MANA O TE PE’E Artistic residency in Rarotonga (Cook Islands)
The Italian musician and composer Luciano Chessa is carrying out an artist residency at the Tavioni and Vananga Gallery in Atupa, on Rarotonga, Cook Islands, from February 7 to 27, 2023.
The residency, made possible by the support of the Italian Embassy in Wellington, consists of an artistic workshop accompanied by a concert which, for the first time, will see a Sardinian artist perform in front of the public of the Polynesian island.
The concert/collaboration with Mike Tavioni will takes place this coming Thursday, February 23, at 6:30 pm at the Gallery Tavioni & Vananga in Rarotonga, Cook Islands. The concert is part of an ongoing collaboration with Mike Tavioni, Cook Islands’s most esteemed visual artist, master carver, and writer. It will takes place this coming Thursday, February 23, at 6:30 pm at the Gallery Tavioni & Vananga in Rarotonga, Cook Islands. Chessa and Tavioni will offer the public a series of Italian and Cook Islands songs including Ei Tipani in an “Italianized” version. In addition to Tavioni and Gina Tavioni-Bamber, Ani O’Neill and Judy Darragh collaborated in the realization of the event.
From the island of Sardinia to the island of Rarotonga, Luciano Chessa represents the paradigm that one of the prerogatives of music is to unite peoples, even those belonging to the most distant cultures.
Info e booking: gallerytavioni@gmail.com
Second event – Luciano Chessa in concert with the New Zealand pianist Hermione Johnson
Chessa will perform at the Audio Foundation in Auckland on 11 March 2023 in duo with Auckland based pianist Hermione Johnson.
The event, supported by the Italian Embassy in Wellington, is part of the Oceania tour of the famous Sardinian musician and composer, a tour that will finally see him perform on 21 March at the Sydney Conservatorium, organized by the Italian Cultural Institute. About Chessa, we give details in the page dedicated to the Sydney concert on this site. As for Johnson, she is an Auckland-based pianist and composer whose performances focus primarily on improvisation and expansive and prepared piano techniques, focusing on the tonal qualities of the instrument and drawing up a range of voices with contrasting patterns and phrases in different registers.
Chessa and Johnson will perform a solo set each, followed by a duo collaboration.
Reservations: HERE