Da Vinci Jazz
Stefano Corradi Matheric Quartet
Physical and Digital Release: 13 July 2018
Stefano Corradi's Matheric Quartet follows Don Quixote through a musical narrative that brings jazz improvisation, contemporary chamber writing and Mediterranean colours into dialogue.
13.67€
Stefano Corradi Matheric Quartet · Don Quixote · 12 tracks
Track timings follow Deezer. Clarinet, bass clarinet and soprano saxophone · harp · double bass · drums and percussion.
Clarinetist, saxophonist, composer and teacher Stefano Corradi graduated in clarinet in 1988. Classically trained, he has maintained a passion for music without boundaries, from jazz and world music to electronics. He worked for many years in the theatre with Moni Ovadia and co-founded the multiethnic Orchestra di Via Padova. He has composed theatre music and performs as a soloist and in live-electronics projects. His educational work includes activities for children and motivation and team-building programmes for businesses. In 2013, his musical work Pierino e il Bruco was performed at the Sala Verdi of the Milan Conservatorio with an orchestra, Giovanni Falzone, Tino Tracanna and Bebo Ferra, and Claudio Bisio as narrator.
Born in 1956, Tiziano Tononi began playing drums as a self-taught musician. In 1978 he met American percussionist Andrew Cyrille and studied with him in New York and Europe. He returned to New York in 1981 to study with Bob Moses and, that same year, co-founded Nexus with saxophonist Daniele Cavallanti. A founding member of the Italian Instabile Orchestra, he has appeared with the ensemble at major international festivals. He has performed and recorded with Tiziana Ghiglioni, Gianluigi Trovesi, Giancarlo Schiaffini, Enrico Rava, Pierre Favre, David Friedman, Dave Liebman, Oliver Johnson, Maggie Nicols, Barre Phillips, Mark Dresser, Steve Lacy, Dewey Redman, Tony Scott, William Parker, Cecil Taylor and Glenn Ferris.
Double bassist Luca Garlaschelli developed his jazz training at the Siena Jazz seminars from 1982 to 1984, studying with Tommaso Lama, Riccardo Zegna, Giancarlo Schiaffini and Bruno Tommaso. He has worked with Harold Land, Bruce Forman, Jimmy Cobb, Franco D’Andrea, Giulio Capiozzo, Tullio De Piscopo, Piero Bassini, Paolo Fresu, Tiziana Ghiglioni, Enrico Rava, Gaetano Liguori, Franco Cerri, Enrico Intra, Ettore Fioravanti, Antonello Salis and Gianluigi Trovesi, among others. He began collaborating with Moni Ovadia in 1999 and completed advanced jazz studies at the Conservatorio Arrigo Boito in Parma in July of that year. His teaching career has included the Conservatorio in Cosenza.
Born in 1987, classical and Celtic harpist Dora Scapolatempore graduated with top marks and honours from the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in Milan, studying with Lisetta Rossi. She has performed as a soloist with the Conservatorio and appeared at festivals with Italian orchestras. She received a scholarship to study popular music at Mogol’s Centro Europeo di Toscolano, and Younghi Pagh-Paan dedicated Silbersaiten V to her. Alongside her classical work, she studied jazz at the Nuoro Jazz seminars. Her concert activities encompass classical music, jazz, pop and folk.
Stefano Corradi was born in Milan in 1964. He studied clarinet with Primo Borali at Milan’s Civica Scuola di Musica, graduated from the Conservatorio in Piacenza and obtained an advanced diploma at the Accademia Lorenzo Perosi in Biella with Antony Pay. He furthered his study of historical instruments and Classical and pre-Classical performance practice in Basel with Pierre-André Taillard.
A first-prize winner in competitions in Italy and abroad, including Città di Stresa, he has performed as a soloist with classical and chamber orchestras and in folk, klezmer and jazz ensembles, playing modern and historical instruments. He has served as principal clarinet of the Orchestra Nuova Cameristica di Milano and appeared at international early-music festivals.
From 2000 to 2006 he worked with Moni Ovadia’s Stage Orchestra in productions including Il violinista sul tetto, L’armata a cavallo, Es Iz Amerike and Kavanàh, touring major Italian theatres. From 2003 to 2012 he was a co-founder and performer with the multiethnic Orchestra di Via Padova.
In 2012 he released Milano, ritagli di tempo, a quartet project devoted to his own compositions. In 2013 he presented his children’s musical work Pierino e il Bruco at the Sala Verdi of the Milan Conservatorio, as composer and conductor, with Claudio Bisio as narrator.
His projects include MyOwnGrooveProj, combining solo wind instruments and live electronics in music ranging from dreamlike to urban sound worlds, often accompanying short films or historical cinema; Wind & Harp, with harpist Dora Scapolatempore and electronics; the klezmer trio XILO Ensemble, with Giampiero Marazza on accordion and Luca Garlaschelli on double bass, which recorded A Paris for Tranquilo; and the multidisciplinary free-improvisation group Sfere-v, with pianist Mell Morcone, dancer Silvia Alfei and painter Sarhtori. He has also performed in Mitoki Trio with Donat Munsila and Pegas Ekamba.
The Stefano Corradi Matheric Quartet brings together Corradi, harpist Dora Scapolatempore, bassist Luca Garlaschelli and drummer and percussionist Tiziano Tononi. Its programme of original compositions inspired by Don Quixote appeared in 2016 and was subsequently issued by Da Vinci Jazz in 2018.
Corradi has collaborated with Stefano Barzan on projects combining wind instruments, electronics and Barzan’s arrangements, and with Milanese poet Vincenzo Costantino Cinaski from 2015. Alongside concerts and recordings, he works in education and leads business-development and team-building activities in which music serves as both a practical tool and a metaphor for organisation and teamwork.
Don Quixote was my childhood hero. I loved his madness, determination, sense of justice and loyalty, and his indifference to other people’s opinions: he was free to be himself, free to be eccentric. Once I reached adulthood—at least according to the calendar—I could not resist dedicating a musical work to him. It had to be free in every respect, outside conventional structures, just like the character himself. I sought an unconventional sound that could convey the feelings the book awakened in me. This is programme music, rather than a literal…
Don Quixote was my childhood hero. I loved his madness, determination, sense of justice and loyalty, and his indifference to other people’s opinions: he was free to be himself, free to be eccentric. Once I reached adulthood—at least according to the calendar—I could not resist dedicating a musical work to him. It had to be free in every respect, outside conventional structures, just like the character himself.
I sought an unconventional sound that could convey the feelings the book awakened in me. This is programme music, rather than a literal musical description: it does not retell the novel, but expresses the emotions certain passages inspired.
The classical, ethereal sound of the harp blends with the wind instruments, balancing tradition and modernity, while the double bass and drums give the ensemble its rhythmic strength. The music is equally free of genre boundaries: classical sonorities meet jazz, and composed passages alternate with collective improvisation to create an emotional soundtrack.
The airy clarinet merges with the harp to evoke the feeling of boundless space.
The bass clarinet and an asymmetrical rhythmic structure suggest a clumsy but endearing character.
The soprano saxophone, a 7/8 pulse and insistent, unconventional harmonies accompany our hero’s determined but difficult departure.
A collective improvisation ends in E major, depicting a life lived outside convention yet brought to a solemn conclusion.
The comic helmet fashioned from a barber’s basin is portrayed through joyful music with a South American flavour.
A moving theme evokes a love that does not exist but is desired at any cost.
A theme introduced by the double bass suggests the horse’s uncertain yet purposeful gait.
Collective improvisation flows into an asymmetrical theme that expresses both hope and uncertainty.
Inspired by folk music, this piece accompanies the story of a comical wedding.
A second take of the fourth track. We included both because we could not choose between them.
The bass clarinet and drums enact a battle.
Clarinet and harp bring the album to a close with an open-ended theme, both melancholy and solemn.
Album notes by Stefano Corradi
Selected awards, reviews and interviews. Radio broadcasts and podcasts are listed separately below.
GRooVE back Magazine
“raffinate atmosfere architettate da Corradi”
The sampler listening guide discusses La Mancha and the quartet’s distinctive instrumental colours within this Cervantes-inspired concept album. Positive critical mention, not a standalone album review.
Read the review ↗ - GRooVE back MagazineArtifara
The scholarly article Don Quijote en el jazz italiano discusses Corradi's album in detail, examining its twelve pieces, literary relationships, improvisation and mixture of modern jazz, classical music and Mediterranean folk. It also cites a Kathodik review by Alessandro Giovanni Bertinetto dated 22 October 2018.
Explore the coverage ↗ - Artifara
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