The total singer

By Susanna Casubolo @susannacasubolo

How did your artistic journey begin? When you were a child, you dreamed of being a singer?

My passion for music started as a child, I sang in the house everything I listened to from tv, faithfully reproduced all the television advertisements “Carosello” acronyms to my grandmother, who was a very interested listener. Then I moved on to difficult things despite the very young age, such as the theme song of the scientific show program “Quark”, discovering only later - studying - that it was “The air on Bach’s fourth string!” I continued at school too, I was the one who sang to my classmates all the things they could hear on the radio, they themselves asked me.

Do you still remember the excitement of your first public appearance, when do you think about it today what emotion do you feel?

I was 16 year old when I started doing competitions in my city and in the surrounding areas, the thing that surprised me was that I always got to the top, even without having done any school yet. Seeing the results I started to believe more and study and from there a lot of things began. The emotion I feel is nostalgic, I am very attached to my past and everything I have done, I like to retrace with my mind the beautiful moments that fortunately have been many. I have done a lot of work trying my hand at various musical fields from Dance to Progressive Rock, from Jazz to pop and author song and it has been very useful for my training, it has made me ductile not only in vocality, but also as lifestyle and personality.

Music envelop your life: singer, vocal coach, teacher, you have a multifaceted professionalism. What fuels the things you do?

We artists say that once the sacred fire has touched you no longer abandons you, the flame of music always remains lit in me, it gives me the strength and the desire to measure myself on several fronts, to always get involved. And then we need a healthy ambition, I would like to re-evaluate this word that is often seen as negative. Ambition, together with creativity, helps to achieve the desired goals. Thanks to creativity and ambition I was able to realize various projects in my life, even very heterogeneous with each other.

How do you prepare for a concert?

I do not exaggerate vocally, I review the strategic points in mind and the most difficult ones I try them on the piano, without fatigue. I never go so far as not to go into vocal menagerie, I try to have a light diet and drink a lot of water. I try to relax because it is an important thing especially if they are difficult and demanding concerts. And then I do everyday things, I move my mind away like this: I do the shopping, a walk.

“My movies Emotion,” “Fiori di Loto, “ “Double face” are your three albums. What kind of experience were they?

Is there one that you consider more important from a professional point of view?

They are definitely three different works, very much in line with my eclectic personality. “My movies Emotion ”is the first, its peculiarity is that it is engraved in English, unusual for an Italian interpreter, perhaps thanks to my fascination with the English-American language due to my passion for Jazz, It is a collection of music from revisited movies, from funky, to jazz, dance to classical and author song, the arrangements are different from the other, it was the prerogative of the project.

“Fiori di loto” is a cd of unpublished songs written for me by various prestigious authors who have offered their artistic contribution to the alluvial events that have struck the town of Aulla (MS-Italy). All artists who have won the “Premio Lunezia”, contributed.

“Double face” is different from the others, each song has two different musical habitats, but the same lyrics. Each song is first performed classically then in a jazzy way. It is an experiment perhaps more suitable for a prepared audience, because there is also the lyrical and natural vocal duplicity that highlights the vocal potential. From a professional point of view “Double face” is more complete because in addition to being born from my idea it is also the first work of which I a m the author of the texts.

Have you collaborated with many different artists, has anyone stayed more in your heart? And is there anyone you haven’t collaborated with yet and you’d like to have by your side at least once?

More than one! To those with whom I have already collaborated, I can start with Mario Lavezzi with whom I had a nice empathy, he is an enthusiastic person of music, contagious, I have done some concerts with him retracing all his most famous successes. Another one is Gaetano Curreri, the leading voice of the band “Stadio, “ who wrote a song in which he put the “featuring”, I met him in Bologna at his house, he made me listen the song, I was impressed, he said: “I studied your voice,” and I must say that you could hear it ,it seemed painted on my vocality. And then how I can’t not mention the teacher Giorgio Gaslini because he is a person who motivated me, a passionate about jazz. He was the forerunner in Ital y, establishing the first Jazz Music Courses at the Milan Conservatory, he wrote for the project “Double face” an unpublished song, shortly before his death. It was a privilege to meet him.

“Dear Loredana D’Anghera thank you for having dedicated your life to singing and giving us the joy of feeling” is a dedication that Fernanda Pivano wrote to you in 1997, can you tell us about this meeting with her?

This dedication was really unexpected for me. I sang in front of Fabrizio De André, Dori Ghezzi and Fernanda Pivano one of the last songs Fabrizio wrote: “ Smisurata preghiera”. I remember their attentive looks to the audience. After the performance, Fernanda wrote me this dedication, I was amazed, happy, I was really incredulous. They are a few words but they tell the truth about what then was my future, more than twenty years have passed since then, it seemed a happy wish. He used the term “hear you” instead of “listening to you,” I’m very careful about words, it’s a profoundly different thing. I cannot forget also the discussions with Fabrizio De André and Dori Ghezzi, it is indelible the memory of that precious meeting of my life.

You have been artistic director since 2001 of the “Premio Lunezia” and teach at the Conservatory, what does it mean

for you to work with young people?

I follow the young people of the conservatory with a very careful and sense of responsibility, having attended it myself, I know that we must immediately give important and significant straights to get them to the goals. The voice is such a delicate and so disadvantaged organ, we always use it as a tool in continuous stress. Working at the conservatory is one of the things I have always wanted, I am very satisfied with my educational path, and I hope that my experiences as singer can be useful to students. Since 2001 I have been in the direction of the “Premio Lunezia,” where every year I listen to hundreds of works together with my team that come from all over Italy and now also from abroad. I have the responsibility of a Festival that gives young people the opportunity to perform in front of insiders. The new proposals section is followed by Radio Rai which for several years has been planning the radio rotation of the finalists.. Then there is a backstage where meetings and relationships often give rise to musical projects and collaborations.

“Gaetano Curreri, the leading voice of the band “Stadio “ who wrote a song in which he put the “featuring”, I met him in Bologna at his house, he made me listen the song, I was impressed, he said: “I studied your voice,” and I must say that you could hear it, it seemed painted on my vocality.”

This difficult period has stopped the possibility of giving life to concrete projects in the present, during the lock down have you been able to work on future projects?

I don’t know if fear can make you work well, I think from an emotional point of view the “lock down” has left something inside us that will have to germinate later, I believe. I have processed things that I still do not see, I have put something away inside me and I will pull it out artistically, at the right time.

If a genius could fulfill your wish which one would you express?

When I was little, people told me that wishes must be kept because otherwise they did not come true. I must say that there is a part of me that has remained a child and still believe in this “superstition”, so I will not say the most intimate desire that I would like to come true, but I would like to express a wish: I would like my work to last a long time, to meet people who make art in all fields, in order to be able to share with them. I hope to do a great deal with young people, because it is their future that is their job to interpret the past of the European Union.. transforming it and elaborating new musical languages.

A new collaboration?

Well, I love America, if I could dream... is that too much if I say: That wonderful last crooner named Tony Bennett?