Franco d'Andrea and Orchestra

Franco D'Andrea and his orchestra present their new work Sketchets of 20th Century at the Casa del Jazz, a project that is inspired by all jazz and contemporary music in their infinite variations, collecting all the inventions and innovations of these two musical genres.

The starting point of Sketchets was the discovery, by Franco D'Andrea, of the Second School of Vienna, that is of dodecaphonic music; the latter work is in fact based on the interval technique, typical of the music of twentieth-century composers such as Schoenberg, Webern and Berg. For D'Andrea, each interval or every small concatenation of intervals - the so-called interval areas - draws a different color, in some cases the color of an era, like the increased sounds throughout the jazz of the 1920s. D'Andrea is inspired above all by musicians such as Armstrong, Monk, Duke Ellington and Archie Shepp and in general by all the classical jazz of the great authors. Thus something absolutely new is born, albeit tied to tradition. The scores, arranged by the young composer Eduardo Rojo, are an amplification for orchestral ensemble in which the most different styles are found.

Franco D'Andrea has been teaching since 1978: as a teacher of jazz piano and ensemble music, he teaches at the National Jazz Academy of Siena, directs the Mittel-European Jazz Workshop in Merano and collaborates with the Civic School of Music of Milan. He has a number of awards to his credit, including: the "Prix du Musicien Européen 2010" de l'Academie du Jazz de France, the Italian record critics' award in 1979 and 1981, the RadioUno Jazz Award in 1982, and the Top Jazz 2011 of Musica Jazz magazine as "Best Pianist".

Photo credits: courtesy of Franco d'Andrea Facebook Page