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.

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, filmed by a few, selected microphones, directly recorded in a high-resolution digital master.
It takes just a few things to give music the opportunity to deliver the “Magic of Sound.” And those are exactly the things we hand it on a silver platter.
But I leave the pleasure of telling the music and the story of this album to the words of Pietro Ballestrero, author of all the music, as well as the group's leading guitarist.

“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 ability of the musicians. The motivations and main goals seem to be an insatiable spirit of research, 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 in an emotional way, 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 that 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 exist or not, it can be individual or collective, and it can mix 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 the cartoon “Totoro” by Miyazaki, and “talk” about the way children explore and see nature.
I wrote Paco a few years ago for my first son Manù, in the last months before he was born.
I have already recorded Vocè in the past, but there is no better voice in the world than Gabriele's clarinet to sing the sensuality of this song. This version is called Vos and is dedicated to Errica.
Cerchio had already been recorded, on the album Pelle by my legendary trio with Danilo Pala on sax and Paolo Franciscone on drums. However, when I played it in Perinaldo arranged for string orchestra the result was fantastic, and it perfectly represented the idea of ​​circular folk dance of 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 very sad stories, but what moves me most are moments of immense strength and beauty within them.
Kibalcic is a Russian anarchist from the early twentieth century, and his name was borrowed as the name of an electric jazz quartet I had with double bass player Stefano Risso. Unfortunately the group broke up and the song was never played in its jazz quartet version, but I really like this version with strings!
Dai che la fai was written in the last months before the recordings, and I ironically dedicated it to myself, hoping to be able to overcome the organizational difficulties of this project.
“Abbraccio forte” 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