Cristiano Calcagnile – Avant Music News

“Excantation” is the act of freeing a victim of enchantment through counter-enchantment—wielding a protective bit good magic to ward off bad magic. It also serves as an apt metaphor for music’s capacity to counteract the two-year-long psychological thrall covid’s held us in.

The music on this disc was recorded at the Teatro San Leonardo in Bologna in February 2019, a year before the virus struck, which makes its theme appear particularly prescient. The group involved was the Nonono Percussion Ensemble, a trio of Gino Robair on percussion, prepared piano and electronics; Cristiano Calcagnile on drums, percussion, drumtable guitar, glockenspiel, and effects; and Stefano Giust on drums, cymbals, and percussion. The seven performances consist of finely-tuned textural music in which timbre and dynamics take the place of melody and harmony as organizing qualities. Contrasts of metal and membrane intermixed with electronic percolations; marimba-like interventions on prepared piano framed on either side by conventional drumkit; bowed and scraped cymbals over low-frequency tones—these and other sounds make up these constantly changing sonic fabrics. The ensemble’s effort is a truly collective one, and although the mix effectively separates the voices, with Giust on the left, Robair in the center, and Calcagnile on the right, all three musicians are expert colorists and sympathetic listeners able to complement each other with whatever nuance or shading is needed at any given moment.

https://www.setoladimaiale.net/catalogue/view/SM4350

Daniel Barbiero

AMN Reviews: Cristiano Calcagnile – ST()MA [We Insist WEIN02]

ST()MA, the six-part suite by percussionist Cristiano Calcagnile, is a mosaic of reconciled opposites: acoustic and electronic instruments, pitched and unpitched sounds, extended and conventional techniques.

Calcagnile, a native of Milan, is an instrumentalist and composer engaged in a variety of activities. His background includes classical studies as well as jazz performance; one of his notable projects is the Ensemble Multikulti Cherry On, an eight-piece group of winds, violin, drums, piano and world percussion inspired by the world jazz of Don Cherry. ST()MA finds him in a solo performance, albeit one fortified by an elaborate array of different instruments centered on, but by no means overshadowed by, a large drum kit.

As Calcagnile acknowledges in his note to the recording, ST()MA was a work of catharsis provoked by a deep personal loss. As a concept work it was organized around the idea, signaled by its title, of an opening or transitional space both connecting and defining inside and outside. A passage, in other words, and a void, all at once. The music is at times heavy and dense thanks not only to some energetic drumming, but to the generous use of electronics and a kind of four-string tabletop electric guitar played with an ebow. At other times the sound is less saturated and even delicate, for example when tuned percussion are brought into play. Throughout, Calcagnile demonstrates himself to be an accomplished layerer of sound in addition to being a gifted percussionist; with ST()MA he has succeeded in creating a complex, challenging work.

ST()MA is also noteworthy for being put together as a multimedia package comprising an LP of music, a DVD and an accompanying set of photographs.

Daniel Barbiero

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