KYRA - PIETRO BALLESTRERO ENSEMBLE, MIRABASSI

KYRA ( CVLD228 )

Author : PIETRO BALLESTRERO
Performer : PIETRO BALLESTRERO ENSEMBLE GABRIELE

Classical. Original compositions by Pietro Ballestrero. Pietro Ballestrero Ensemble: P. Ballestrero acoustic and electric guitar, Valerio Iaccio violin, Massimiliano Gilli violin, Gerardo Vitale viola, Augusto Gasbarri cello, Fulvio Buccafusco double bass. Gabriele Mirabassi clarinet.
24bit/88.2kHz original live-in-studio recorded, mixed and mastered at Velut Luna Studios, Preganziol (TV) Italy on April 2012.

Traces

01 - TIGHT HUG
02 - UPI
03 - COME ON YOU CAN DO IT
04 - VOS
05 - CIRCLE
06 - KIBALCIC
07 - ROUGH SEA
08 - TEAR
09 - GREEN
10 - PACO
11 - STRONG HUG (alt take)

Notes

KYRA is a beautiful album.
Guitar, double bass, string quartet, and Gabriele Mirabassi's solo clarinet: all together, live, in the beautiful natural acoustics of the large hall of the Velut Luna studios in Preganziol, captured by a few select microphones, recorded directly into a high-resolution digital master.
A few things are needed to give music the opportunity to offer the "Magic of Sound." And those are exactly the things we hand it on a silver platter.
But I'll leave it to Pietro Ballestrero, the composer of all the music and the band's lead guitarist, to share the pleasure of telling the story of this album.

Improvisation is a very fun game. I have the impression that very often jazz music is created around the desire to play this game and a desire to express the individual skill of the musicians. The motivations and main objectives seem to be an insatiable spirit of exploration, originality, collective energy, virtuosity and finally, eventually, beauty. My point of view has always been different, and in this work I have further distanced myself from that type of approach. KYRA's music was born emotionally, in an attempt to represent or create something beautiful. Each piece has a story to tell and a direct connection to a feeling or a state of mind, joy, sadness, anger, fear, friendship, laughter, tears. I think the purest form of beauty available in music is sound. This made me fall in love with the idea of ​​playing with this type of formation, and legitimized the choice to simplify other elements, such as harmony, which I considered as instruments, not so important in themselves but functional to something else. From this point of view, improvisation can It can be present or not, it can be individual or collective, and it can be mixed with written material, functioning as a bridge that unites the different languages ​​present within the group.
Compositions.
"Upi" is dedicated to my little daughter Zoe and was written when she was learning to walk. This song and "Verde" are inspired by Miyazaki's animated film "Totoro," and "speak" to the way children explore and experience nature.
I wrote Paco a few years ago for my first son Manù, in the last months before he was born.
I've recorded "Vocè" before, but there's no better voice in the world than Gabriele's clarinet to sing the sensuality of this song. This version is titled "Vos" and is dedicated to Errica.
"Circle" had also already been recorded, on the album "Pelle" by my legendary trio with Danilo Pala on saxophone and Paolo Franciscone on drums. However, when I performed it in Perinaldo, arranged for string orchestra, the result was fantastic, and perfectly captured the idea of ​​a circular folk dance in this composition.
Swimming in rough seas leads to a deep concentration on one's own strengths, and at the same time amplifies emotions and thoughts, because it gives a feeling of loneliness and restlessness.
Teardrop: There are some truly sad stories, but what moves me most are the moments of immense strength and beauty within them.
Kibalchic is a Russian anarchist from the early twentieth century, and his name was borrowed from an electric jazz quartet I had with double bassist Stefano Risso. Unfortunately, the group broke up, and the piece was never performed in its jazz quartet version, but I absolutely love this version with strings!
Dai che la fai was written in the last few months before the recordings, and I ironically dedicated it to myself, hoping I could overcome the organizational difficulties of this project.
"A big hug" is a way my friend Ezio often ends his messages. I wrote it over the course of a few days in September, and in hindsight, I discovered that one of those days was his birthday. So this is a little gift from me."
Peter Ballestrero