Vox Balaenae

PRODUKTBESCHREIBUNGEN
VOX BALAENAE The musical project: The spells generated from the Sea are really multiple: the scents of the waves, the colours of the sea bottom, the rainbows created by the waves, the voices of the marine animals and so on. The miracles of nature have always fascinated man: poets, writers, painters, sculptors have all tried, in their own arts, to recall and reproduce the majesty of the sea. Yet the musician has always made more than the other artists: through the ethereal language of music he has often tried to ravish and imitate the voice of the sea. Games of sounds, cries and voices have been reproduced in an evocative musical journey entitled Vox Balaenae: the listener is driven into a surreal and suggestive world in which all kinds of musical expressions are melted in a unique performance following a complex process of interaction. Vox Balaenae opens a new frontier in the world of contemporary art, breaking with the traditional representative patterns: a journey in which acoustic and electronic vibrations are melted and impressed on the disc to be infinitely reproduced for people living thousands of kilometers far from the charming places of the Sorrentine Coastline, the very place where live recordings have been made in suggestive grottos and gorges. In the Vox Balaenae universe listening, feeling and meditating change into a symphony of the senses where innovation and creativity are interwoven in a continuous dialogue among modern concepts, knowledge and techniques. In other words there is the transposition of the traditional live concert into a "sensorial disc". Vox Balaenae, a project wholly planned and cured by Alessandro Crosta and Nadia Testa, borrows it's title from the homonymous aquatic and evocative work composed in 1971 by George Crumb, an American composer now considered one of the best representatives of the musique d'avanguard. Inspired to a recording of the voices of whales, the first track imitates and transfigures the sounds of nature, which are musically ri-elaborated. The American composer, still living, has wisely reproduced the voice of the whale and all the sounds of the sea and it's creatures (such as dolphins, gulls and so on) by using classical instruments (such as the piano, the flute, the cello and the crotales) in an experimental way thanks to it's innovative techniques of amplification and technical exploration. Among the following tracks there are Vermont Counterpoint by S. Reich, and some reproductions of marine sounds lively recorded by Alessandro Crosta ad Nadia Testa. The musical journey starts from contemporary music to go back to the beginning of the XXth century with Debussy, whose music is proposed in a modernized polyphonic version: "The future as a mirror of the past". Tracks are preceded by the listening of natural samples recorded on the sea of Sorrento (natural set of the disc) which, insinuating in each gorge, succeeds in emanating voices of an uncontaminated nature, unique in the world. The Artists: Alessandro Crosta, Flutist Alessandro Crosta, polyflutist and composer, is a young Italian versatile and innovative musician. His repertoire goes from the traditional literature for flute to the contemporary music as well as the electronic one. In his performances he exhibits in a vast range of roles: he has played as a soloist flute with a lot of European Orchestras (Orchestra dei Professori del Teatro S. Carlo - Napoli, Orchestra Arcenciel - Zurich, Minsk Orchestra - Belarus, Plovdiv Orchestra - Bulgaria, Orchestra Craiova - Romania), he has toured with the Italian pianist Nadia Testa as well as with the Belgian "Le Vraie Note Trio", and he has worked with several composers like Roland Moser (Switzerland), Wolfgang Rhim (Germany) and Arnoldo Antunas (Brazil). He has been on concert tours to Italy, the USA, Israel, Spain, France, Egypt, Jordan, Mauritius, Seychelles, South Africa, Brazil, Morocco, Malta, Tunisia, Bahamas, Greece, Turkey, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Portugal, Grenada, Ucraine, the UK, Argentina, Croatia, Uruguay, British Virgin Islands, Reunion, Denmark, Switzerland, Senegal, Cyprus, Libya, Tenerife, Funchal, Antigua and Barbados. Several CD recordings show his inclusive musical interests. As a flute-collector, he usually makes exhibition-concerts showing and playing his instruments (about 40 ca. Ancient and modern flutes from the XVIIth to the XXth century). Playing ancient flutes he succeeds in reproducing sound now forgotten, while playing modern flutes he is able to create new sounds and unexpected atmospheres. Nowadays he is composing a new kind of music with electroacoustic techniques applied to Flutes. He took the first degree with full marks at the 'D. Cimarosa' Conservatory of Avellino (Italy) with Nicola Caiazza and the master summa cum laude at IMP "G. Braga" of Teramo (Italy). After perfecting his technique with Conrad Klemm, he moved to Switzerland where in 2005 he took the 'Konzert Diplom' at the Musikhochschule of Winterthur-Zurich with Matthias Ziegler. As a concert flutist Alessandro Crosta has won about 21 musical competitions and scholarships and has made many recordings for the Italian television broadcast RAI. Since 2000 he has been the Artistic Director of 'Gli Anniversari della Musica International Festival" of Avellino (Italy). He has published several books such as "Bellini, Verdi e Cimarosa", "Muzio Clementi", "Sergej Prokofiev", "Antonin Dvorak", "Luigi Boccherini", "Mozart e Schumann", "Grieg, Leoncavallo, Pleyel e Sibelius", "Puccini e Casella" and the first volume of the "Quaderni musicali del flauto traverso" dedicated to the piéce of Albert Roussel "Joueur de flutes". Now he teaches flute at the Italian Secondary Music School. Nadia Testa, Pianist Born in Avellino, Nadia studied piano with Carlo Alessandro Lapegna and graduated with full marks and praise at the 'D. Cimarosa' Conservatory of Avellino in 1983. At the age of 18 she made her international debut with orchestra in Switzerland, where she played Mozart Concertos with the Symphonic Orchestra of Sannio. Then she specialized in piano with Vincenzo Vitale, Franco Medori e Carlo Bruno. Later Nadia won a scholarship to study as a soloist with Aldo Ciccolini at the Biella Music Academy, where she took the degree in 1987. At the same time she has been a finalist in several national and international Competitions. After studying as a lyric singer as well as Psychology at "La Sapienza" University of Rome, in 2005 Nadia received her degree in the discipline of Art, Music and Show Performance at the "Braga" IMP of Teramo (Italy) summa cum laude. As a soloist pianist she has made many concerts in Italy (Bologna, Torino, Bergamo, Milano, Messina, Firenze, Pisa, La Spezia, Udine, Salerno, Sorrento, Napoli, Aosta, Siracusa, and Caltanissetta) and abroad (Belgium, Switzerland, Israel, Egypt, Brasil, South Africa, Spain, Morocco, Tunisia, Malta, Greace, Argentina and Uruguay). She has been a founder member and the President of the "Associazione Igor Stravinsky of Avellino since 1997. As an accompanist pianist Nadia has partnered a wide range of soloists, both instrumentalists and singers. Since 1998 she has been playing in duo with the Italian flutist Alessandro Crosta, making performances in various international festival. Their international debut was at the A. Scarlatti Auditorium during the "Festival for Bach Celebrations" of Naples in 2000; since then the duo has been regularly invited to play in many countries of Europe, North Africa and the USA, and has performed throughout the UK to critical acclaim. Their repertoire goes from the XVIIth to the XXth century music, including the contemporary one. From 1998 to 2003 she accompanied the flutist Conrad Klemm during his Italian master classes and made several recordings for the Italian television broadcast RAI. In 2000 Nadia founded the flexible chamber group Stravinsky Ensemble (piano, flute, strings and singers), one of the most appreciated ensemble in Southern

Number of Discs: 1

UK Delivery:

• Free delivery on all orders of £10 or more.
• £1.49 delivery fee on orders below £10.
• UK orders are shipped via Royal Mail 2nd Class.

International Delivery:

• Flat rate delivery charges vary by country.

Dispatch and Delivery Times:

• All orders are shipped from our warehouse in Northampton, UK within 48 hours of receipt during working hours.
• UK mainland orders typically arrive within 3-5 working days via Royal Mail 2nd Class.
• International estimated delivery times:
• Europe & Channel Islands: 7 to 10 working days
• USA: 7 to 15 working days
• Rest of the World: 9 to 21 working days

View our full delivery infomation here.