Silvia Bolognesi Italian Trio w/Special guest Nick Mazzarella

Saturday, September 23

TIME: 2:45-3:45PM

VENUE: smart museum. 5550 south greenwood ave.

A black and white image of Silvia Bolognesi standing in between two band members, they all look as if they are shouting; followed by a black and white image of Nick Mazzarella playing the saxophone wearing a button down shirt and glasses.

SILVIA BOLOGNESI ITALIAN TRIO W/SPECIAL GUEST NICK MAZZARELLA

Silvia Bolognesi is a double bass player, composer, and arranger. She leads several bands: Open Combo, Almond Tree, Xilo Ensemble, Ju-Ju Sounds, Fonterossa Open Orchestra, Beast Friends, and Young Shouts. She is also part of the international string trio Hear in Now, with Tomeka Reid on cello and Mazz Swift on violin and vocals; the Art Ensemble of Chicago’s 50th Anniversary special project; and the Roscoe Mitchell Quintet.

In 2010, Bolognesi founded her own label, Fonterossa Records. She is now also artistic director of the Fonterossa Day minifestival, hosted by Pisa Jazz, and the curator and conductor of the Fonterossa Open Orchestra, a creative orchestra based in Pisa since 2017.

As a student, she studied double bass at the R. Franci Institute of Siena with Maestros Andrea Granai and Alberto Bocini, and jazz at the Siena Jazz Academy with Paolino dalla Porta, Furio di Castri, and Ferruccio Spinetti. The most significant encounters in her musical training were those with William Parker, Muhal Richard Abrams, Lawrence “Butch” Morris, Roscoe Mitchell, and Antony Braxton.

She now teaches double bass and combo at the Siena Jazz Academy and is a jazz double bass teacher at Conservatorio Statale di Palermo. She has been part of the “European exchange-Erasmus +” program for the Conservatory of Maastricht (Holland), Tbilisi (Georgia), Riga (Latvia), and Birmingham (UK) since 2016, and has run workshops on improvisation and "conduction" since 2008.

Alto saxophonist and composer Nick Mazzarella’s work has been described as “continuing the approach taken by like-minded trailblazing altoists Eric Dolphy, Ornette Coleman, Henry Threadgill, Oliver Lake, and Gary Bartz [by] seeking to embody the history of [jazz] music while pushing it forward into new realms” (All About Jazz).

He has been a consistent presence in Chicago's music scene since the early 2000s, and has made an aesthetically unique contribution to the city’s rich culture of jazz and improvised music as both a performer and a presenter.

His numerous trio projects and eponymous quintet have served as the primary vehicles for his endeavors as an improviser, composer, and bandleader, while as a collaborator or sideman he has performed and recorded with such artists as Joshua Abrams, Geof Bradfield, Hamid Drake, Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, Dana Hall, Rob Mazurek, Makaya McCraven, Avreeayl Ra, Mike Reed, Tomeka Reid, Clark Sommers, and Ken Vandermark.

To date, Mazzarella has appeared on over forty albums, including a dozen as a leader. Recordings of his original music have been released by Nessa, Astral Spirits, Clean Feed, International Anthem, and Out of Your Head, and he has performed throughout the United States and Europe, as well as in Africa and the Middle East.

Bolognesi’s Italian quartet ensemble compositions and instrumentation, as well as frequent moments of collective improvisation, exhibit their defining characteristics as a classic modern jazz quartet. Their first recording, aLive Shouts (2019) contains A Suite for Bessie Jones, written by Silvia specifically for this group and inspired by the lyrics of some songs made famous by the singer. A Frame in the Crowd, their second album (2021), is comprised completely of original compositions written and recorded during the pandemic and dedicated to a “missing” audience. For this special performance, Nick Mazzarella will join the group, once again expanding the possibilities for collective improvisation.

For the Hyde Park Jazz Festival, the Italian Trio with Special Guest Nick Mazzarella will present the suite, Storia di un femminiello (2023), written by Il Pavone. The “Femminiello” is a typical figure of traditional Neapolitan popular culture, and is used to refer to a male with markedly feminine attitudes and expressiveness—often a transgender or transsexual individual or hermaphrodite. The Femminiello is a common and much-respected figure in the neighborhoods of the historic center of Naples, where the Femminiello is thought to bring good luck. For this reason, it has become customary to take a picture of a newborn baby in the arms of the Femminiello. The Femminiello character has existed for a long time in the Campanian tradition, within which it manages to enjoy a relatively privileged position.