Cetacea

Cetacea, an odyssey of lost sounds. An evocative title for the first Italian-or indeed European-compact disk devoted to the 12 species of cetaceans that inhabit our seas. With the 'live' voices of the marine mammls linked up, in a New Age-style mélange, with the sounds and rhythms of the Mediterraneam basin. "Each of the pieces," explains Andrea Centazzo, the musician and composer who put together this unusual musical 'trip' (already available in record shops, also in cassette form), "was inspired by a Mediterranean cetacean currently in danger of extinction. It's a real musical odyssey, as the title says, because Ulysses' voyage was an adventure that had this sea and its lands as its scenario. Homer's epic here becomes the odyssey of the cetaceans in their struggle for survival, made even more dramatic today by the condition of our waters." The initiative was set up in collaboration with the Cetacean Foundation for the Defense of Marine Mammals ( a Rimini-based organization that aims to safeguard all forms of life in the Mediterranean Sea ), which gave Centazzo a number of cassettes with the cetaceans' recorded voices. But how was it possible to rework the atmospheres, sounds, rhythms and musical traditions of the Mediterranean area ( with a considerate ear for Africa and the Middle East ), creatively using the voices of the mammals recorded in the open sea? "The idea came to me one day at the dolphinarium in Riccione," Centazzo recalls, " as I was listening to the cries of the dolphins. It struck me that, with a computer, I'd be able to merge them in with percussion instruments and a melodic progression, like in a symphony. " He says that the other thing that influenced him was that, perhaps because of his origins in the chilly northern region of Friuli, he'd always had a great passion for the sea. It tells things that we, " of the race that stands on the earth," do not know, the meaning of which has been lost to us: the whistling of longsnouted dolphins, the unmistakable, poignant call of the sperm whale, the haunting murmurings of the baleen whales. Centazzo's pieces thus try to interpret the emotions suggested by the sea mammals' voices: six are more dreamy and melancholy, while the other six are given over to rhythmic percussion typical of ethnic and especially African music. Another African element is the electronic marimba, similar to a vibraharp, that Centazzo hooks up to the computer to produce a very wide range of sounds. The use of percussio means he can overlay musical phrases with extraordinary and novel development effects. It's another example of the wider musical prospects opened out by the computer era. The triple album Indian Tapes ( 1980 ) marked the beginning of Centazzo's musical career. The record won a music critics' award in 1982, and was voted best percussion recording in a referendum in Down beat, one of America's most prestigious music magazines. A lot of field research went into the making of the record: Centazzo visited Indian reserves in Alabama and Mississippi, as well as the Hopi reserve in California. His love for nature was also apparent in Indian Tapes, with a whole suite made up of birdsong. In 1984, the nature-music link was translated into a video, a homage to his roots: Tiare, 'land' in the Friulan dialect, garnered a clutch of awards. In 1989 he turned his hand to a video-art piece on Bologna, The Colors of a Dream, where the music underscores and links up with the visual side, with the images of characteristic places and scenery. "I'm interested in communication, on all levels," Centazzo explains. "Animal cries, human voices, and sounds, but also colors, the evocative side, visions suggested by images, are all ways of expressing something, of communicating." That's why he has the habit of recording everything on his frequent trips to the tropics, from screeches of parrots to the cries of lemurs, the Madagascan prosimians that emit sounds similar to those produced by a saxophone. On other occasions, he has recorded muezzin calling the faithful to their prayers. He is also fascinated by great men, poets and intellectuals like Pasolini, to whom he dedicated a concert for a classical orchestra in 1988, setting some of the late writer's poems to music. His passionate interest in animali cries and the possibility of reworking them within a musical composition was one of the leitmotifs, a year previously, of the music he composed for a Genoa Repertory Company production of Milan Kundera's Jack and his Master. Now, since February, he has been performing Cetacea, an odyssey of lost sounds for the whole of Italy, in a tour that will end in Riccione With the presentation of an international conference on marine mammals. Accompanyng him will be eight musicians and a series of videos synchronized with the music. "Perhaps," says the dolphins' friend, "we'll even do a European tour that will take us as far as the 'Seal Hospital' in Holland."


Cetacea



NEW SOUNDS BEYOND THE SEA

Concert for ensemble (7 players) and video images. Cetacea is a project realized by Andrea Centazzo for the "Cetacea foundation of Riccione", several year ago to sensitizing the Institutions, Media and people on the extinction danger of the marine mammals in the Mediterranean Sea. Many species have already disappeared and the remaining are in great danger. The concert has been performed by the Andrea Centazzo Ensemble both in Europe and USA and now with new compositions and images is ready for an exciting comeback. All the compositions are played in sync with images ranging from Cetacean spices to sea visions and landscapes. All the images are original material and video section features Madagascar images shot especially for thid project bj the composer himself. Seven players feature this project: 2 keyboards, 2 percussions, violin, soprano saxophone & clarinet and singer. The music blends together the "world music" flavour of the original Cetacea project with the minimalism and the post avantgard sonorities of the most recent Centazzo compositions. The subtle use of the electronic devices and digital gears, gives to this concert a special connotation mixing traditional and new sound atmospheres in a unique way. "Centazzo moves nimbly in & out and allocates compositions with plenty of vigour" ( Chris Blankford, Wire, 1/97 - England ).

Cetacea, an odyssey of lost sounds. An evocative title for the first Italian-or indeed European-compact disk devoted to the 12 species of cetaceans that inhabit our seas. With the 'live' voices of the marine mammls linked up, in a New Age-style mélange, with the sounds and rhythms of the Mediterraneam basin. "Each of the pieces," explains Andrea Centazzo, the musician and composer who put together this unusual musical 'trip' (already available in record shops, also in cassette form), "was inspired by a Mediterranean cetacean currently in danger of extinction. It's a real musical odyssey, as the title says, because Ulysses' voyage was an adventure that had this sea and its lands as its scenario. Homer's epic here becomes the odyssey of the cetaceans in their struggle for survival, made even more dramatic today by the condition of our waters." The initiative was set up in collaboration with the Cetacean Foundation for the Defense of Marine Mammals ( a Rimini-based organization that aims to safeguard all forms of life in the Mediterranean Sea ), which gave Centazzo a number of cassettes with the cetaceans' recorded voices. But how was it possible to rework the atmospheres, sounds, rhythms and musical traditions of the Mediterranean area ( with a considerate ear for Africa and the Middle East ), creatively using the voices of the mammals recorded in the open sea? "The idea came to me one day at the dolphinarium in Riccione," Centazzo recalls, " as I was listening to the cries of the dolphins. It struck me that, with a computer, I'd be able to merge them in with percussion instruments and a melodic progression, like in a symphony. " He says that the other thing that influenced him was that, perhaps because of his origins in the chilly northern region of Friuli, he'd always had a great passion for the sea. It tells things that we, " of the race that stands on the earth," do not know, the meaning of which has been lost to us: the whistling of longsnouted dolphins, the unmistakable, poignant call of the sperm whale, the haunting murmurings of the baleen whales. Centazzo's pieces thus try to interpret the emotions suggested by the sea mammals' voices: six are more dreamy and melancholy, while the other six are given over to rhythmic percussion typical of ethnic and especially African music. Another African element is the electronic marimba, similar to a vibraharp, that Centazzo hooks up to the computer to produce a very wide range of sounds. The use of percussio means he can overlay musical phrases with extraordinary and novel development effects. It's another example of the wider musical prospects opened out by the computer era. The triple album Indian Tapes ( 1980 ) marked the beginning of Centazzo's musical career. The record won a music critics' award in 1982, and was voted best percussion recording in a referendum in Down beat, one of America's most prestigious music magazines. A lot of field research went into the making of the record: Centazzo visited Indian reserves in Alabama and Mississippi, as well as the Hopi reserve in California. His love for nature was also apparent in Indian Tapes, with a whole suite made up of birdsong. In 1984, the nature-music link was translated into a video, a homage to his roots: Tiare, 'land' in the Friulan dialect, garnered a clutch of awards. In 1989 he turned his hand to a video-art piece on Bologna, The Colors of a Dream, where the music underscores and links up with the visual side, with the images of characteristic places and scenery. "I'm interested in communication, on all levels," Centazzo explains. "Animal cries, human voices, and sounds, but also colors, the evocative side, visions suggested by images, are all ways of expressing something, of communicating." That's why he has the habit of recording everything on his frequent trips to the tropics, from screeches of parrots to the cries of lemurs, the Madagascan prosimians that emit sounds similar to those produced by a saxophone. On other occasions, he has recorded muezzin calling the faithful to their prayers. He is also fascinated by great men, poets and intellectuals like Pasolini, to whom he dedicated a concert for a classical orchestra in 1988, setting some of the late writer's poems to music. His passionate interest in animali cries and the possibility of reworking them within a musical composition was one of the leitmotifs, a year previously, of the music he composed for a Genoa Repertory Company production of Milan Kundera's Jack and his Master. Now, since February, he has been performing Cetacea, an odyssey of lost sounds for the whole of Italy, in a tour that will end in Riccione With the presentation of an international conference on marine mammals. Accompanyng him will be eight musicians and a series of videos synchronized with the music. "Perhaps," says the dolphins' friend, "we'll even do a European tour that will take us as far as the 'Seal Hospital' in Holland."

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