Every year Radicondoli hold an intense festival for culture lovers, with this year being the 35th edition. From July 17 to 31 there was a packed programme of events all set within the backdrop of the historical villages within the region. We have been so lucky to have been part of this fantastic festival and witnessed several events all surrounded by traditional Tuscan life and community.
One of the events we attended was a jazz concert, performed with the backdrop of Radicondoli’s Collegiate Church with its majestic bell tower, which was dramatically lit up for the event. The talented musicians consisted of a pianist playing a grand Piano, a guitarist, drummer, saxophonist, and the singer Greta Panettieri. Greta was announced in 2016 and 2018 as one of the ten most fascinating voices on the Italian and International jazz scene. She is a musician, singer, composer, and author of lyrics.
Jazz is a beautiful genre of music which displays a dynamic emotional expression behind the playing. Individual musicians have the freedom to express themselves on their instruments whilst maintaining their responsibility to the other musicians and the framework of the tune. Therefore, throughout the concert we witnessed the seamless display of improvisation where the musicians perform their interpretation of a tune with their own music dialogue. A jazz tune is rarely played the same and as the musicians have a freedom of expression to themselves and their instruments, communicating the emotion of the moment (the emotion they are felling whist they are performing, this being spontaneous).
A wonderful evening.
About me 🙂
My mother was a classical piano teacher with me following in her footsteps and learning to play the piano the classical way. Classical music is written with fixed compositions and whilst learning and playing you focus on the technique, the structure and timing of the piece, reading the sheet music and playing what you see on the page. Personally, I like composers that have emotion moving from aggressive to slow, loud to quiet, my favourite being Mozart.
In my 20’s I started to listen and appreciate the freedom and excitement of Jazz music. After witnessing the joy of improvision and the individual interpretation driven by the performer, I gave it a go. Having learnt classical which requires good finger dexterity, I found this to help, however, soon realised it is hard to switch from classical theory to jazz theory. Jazz is extremely complex with the introduction of complex chords and scales and feels entirely foreign as classical piano never calls for a bar to be improvised (although I often did to my mother’s annoyance) with jazz requiring the pianist to be thinking 10 steps ahead of the music. I never really accomplished the skill but at least I gave it a go! My desire is to learn the saxophone (learning the clarinet first) and have promised myself I will start soon…….
Travel adventures 