Sydney International Women’s Jazz Festival
SIMA’s International Women’s Jazz Festival, which for the past 12 years has championed breakthrough artistic innovation, diversity and women leaders in jazz, is back in Sydney, 25 October to 5 November. The Italian Cultural Institute of Sydney is particularly pleased to collaborate with SIMA for the 2023 edition of the Festival, by bringing to Sydney the Italian duo of Debora Petrina and Giovanni Mancuso who will perform their album Nuovomondo Symphonies.
The concert is scheduled on Saturday 28 October at St. Stephens Uniting Church in Sydney. During the performance Petrina and Mancuso will both play piano, with Debora also singing in a series of imaginary languages, while in the background a video made by the two musicians will run with clips from silent movies from the 1930s, amateur movies from the 1950s-60s in Super 8, and expeditions films. With their project NuovoMondo Symphonies, Petrina and Mancuso offer a vast depth of musical interests, experience and exploration. Their work encompasses pop music, jazz, surrealism, sound art, contemporary classical composition and opera distilled into immersive and exciting miniatures.
This is the first time that the Institute partners with the Women’s Jazz Festival and it is significant that it is taking place with a project in line with the goals set by the SIMA. The Festival will be held in various halls of the city starting on October 25th and ending on November 5th. For detailed information please visit the Festival website: Sydney Int’l Women’s Jazz Festival – SIMA
Debora Petrina, AKA Petrina, is one of the revelations of Italian independent music scene, and synthetizes in a visionary style her oblique and sensual song writing and the experimentations of avant-garde jazz-rock and electronics. An artist at 360 degrees, she goes from a solid preparation as a classical and contemporary pianist, with several premieres and recordings in the United States, to the use of electronics and keyboards, to the composition for different kinds of ensemble, to the particular use of voice and dance, also in improvisation. She has reworked a piece by John Cage; the score is now published worldwide by Edition Peters with the double name Cage/Petrina. She is the only Italian songwriter (together with Carmen Consoli) whose songs David Byrne has published in his radio-playlists of favourites. Winner of several Italian Awards (the Ciampi Award among them) and producer in full of her music, she has recorded six albums as a songwriter (with David Byrne, John Parish, Jherek Bischoff and Elliott Sharp among the guests) and four albums as an interpreter of contemporary music (OgreOgress and Stradivarius), with world premieres of pieces by Morton Feldman and Sylvano Bussotti. Paolo Fresu has chosen one her albums, Roses of the Day to launch his label dedicated to voices (Tuk Voice).
Giovanni Mancuso, pianist, composer and conductor, is the winner of the seventh edition of the International Orpheus Competition (Spoleto) for new chamber operas (chairman of the commission Louis Andriessen) with the opera Obra Maestra inspired by Frank Zappa. He received commissions from important cultural institutions, like Venezia Biennale Musica and Biennale Danza, Teatro La Fenice, Orchestra Giovanile Italiana, Ex Novo Ensemble, Milano Musica, Sentieri Selvaggi, Orchestra dei Pomeriggi Musicali, Istituzione Sinfonica Abruzzese, European Association for Jewish Culture. He has recorded as a conductor and pianist for RAI (Italia), Norwegian Broadcasting Company and RNE-Madrid, Spain. His compositions have been broadcasted by RAI Radio 3, Norwegian Broadcasting Company, VPRO (Holland), Radio Bremen, RNE (Spain) and performed in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, South Africa, Germany, Lebanon, Brasile, United States. He has collaborated with Alvin Curran, Raiz, Charlemagne Palestine, Frederic Rzewski, Sylvano Bussotti, Philip Corner, Malcolm Goldstein, Butch Morris, Carlo Boccadoro, Debora Petrina, Lukas Ligeti, Frank London.
Information and bookings:
https://sima.org.au/event/caroline-davis-nuovomondo-symphonies/