2017

Atti Unici and Ombre nell'inverno

2017 Tour

In 2017, Vinicio Capossela went on tour twice. The first leg, during summertime, was called «Atti unici» (Single Acts). The performances were conceived like a unicum and were linked to the album «Canzoni della Cupa».

The second leg, during wintertime, which is a very special season to the songwriter, was called «Ombre nell'inverno» (Shadows in winter). It was a series of concerts about wintertime and that "narrow passage" of the end of the year through which every ghost must pass.

In the middle, he won the important Tenco Prize for the career.

Series of billboards of Atti Unici tour made by Jacopo Leone.

Atti Unici e qualche rivincita

These were the Single Acts' concerts, during which Capossela took inspiration from his past and his long career, and takes the opportunity to meet new and old companions:

7th May / Naples / Basilica di Santa Maria della Sanità / «In-sanità, oratorio per il politeismo napoletano»

24th May / Vicenza / Teatro Olimpico / «Di che fate maraviglia?» / Festival Biblico

3rd June / Verona / Teatro Romano / «La forza del destino - odissea musicale di Vinicio Capossela» / Festival della Bellezza

6th July / Fiesole (FI) / Teatro Romano / «Perdere il ritorno»

7th July / Bologna / Piazza Maggiore / Dialogue with the director Bela Tarr, in occasion of «Le armonie di Werckmeister»'s presentation

13th July / Ercolano (NA) / Villa Favorita's Park / «Ludis» / Vesuvian Villas' Festival

19th July / Parma / Auditorium Paganini / with Toscanini Orchestra / Rassegna Stelle Vaganti

20th July / Sassuolo (MO) / Piazzale della Rosa / with Toscanini Orchestra

1st August / Verucchio (RN) / «Strikes!» / Verucchio Festival

2nd August / Monforte d'Alba (CN) / «Strikes!» / Monfortinjazz

3rd August / Arbatax (OG) / «Strikes!» / Red Rocks Beach

7th August / Ripescia (GR) / «Combat Folk» / Festambiente

10th August / Carpino (FG) / «Combat Folk» / Carpino Folk Fest

13th August / Sella Nevea a Tarvisio (UD) / «Concerto solo ad alta quota» / No Borders Music Festival

26th August / Calitri (AV) / «Combat Folk» / Sponz Fest

1st September / Orvieto (TR) / «Combat Folk» / Umbria Folk Festival

7th May - «In-Sanità» in Naples

Capossela explained that this appointment has been a kind of "homage" to Neapolitan politeism, a cultural politeism in which the holy, life and molteplicity blend.

On the mysterious background of San Gaudioso's catacombs, and under the marvelous Baroque altar of Santa Maria della Sanità's Church, Capossela and an ensemble of ancient music specialists moved the audience with an elegant, but popular concert. It featured some religious hymns, dedicated to the Madonna, just as «La Madonna delle Conchiglie», then a Jacobin song and Capossela's songs about angels, poor people, saints and doomed women. An extraordinary journey between life and death, between light and shadow, opened by the Miserere singers of Sessa Aurunca's Arciconfraternita del Santissimo Crocifisso and ended with a standing ovation and the performance of «Inno alla Gioia» with the brass band ScalzaBanda, made up of Montesanto neighborhood kids.

(Avvenire)

Some images of «In-Sanità»

Video by RepTV.

24th May - Di che fate maraviglia? in Vicenza

This "single act" held in Vicenza focused on the concept of "wonder" and its links with the sacred. Capossela claimed that the presence of the sacred widens borders. It is not due to a single cult, it is rather a relationship between man and elements, and vice versa. A necessity that was born with humanity that can be used wonderfully, but terribly too.

From the cult according to which a God can conceal themselves as a guest, to the severe and terrible Old Testament God, from the polytheist Pantheon to Balaam's donkey, from the Chinese dragon hidden in the lake to Saint John's night premonitions, from popular sacredness to a fundamentalist video message. This musical walk aims to be a wandering between apparitions and disparitions of the sacred in our culture. This concert does not demand to be a scientific explication, it is rather an occasion to enjoy some moments out of news' dictatorship.

Like Old West preachers, let's go put the dust on fire!

Vinicio Capossela

3rd June - Musical Odyssey in Verona

For Verona's Festival della Bellezza, framed in Teatro Romano, Vincio Capossela told the story of his musical Odyssey through lyrical choirs, piano bar, opera theaters, Fitzcarraldo, Michelangelo, sirens, Itaca, tempests and whales to conquer the useless with a piano and some Baroque strings, but also a lyrical choir, so as to get opera closer to life.

«Ulysses (in Italian also called Odisseo) earned his comeback singing like an aedo. The beauty of his singing seduced, his truth convinced. We will try, through our music, to earn our journey, supported by ruins. The heartbreaking beauty of Roman ruins in a special night. The Roman theatre against the champions' night: they will both get ruined».

Vinicio Capossela

Except for his songs, the music that was played featured Verdi (Il Trovatore, La Traviata, Rigoletto, La Forza del Destino, Otello, Requiem), Puccini (Madama Butterfly) and Haendel (Rinaldo).

Vinicio Capossela and his ensemble play «Con una rosa»

Those were the members of the ensemble:

Enrico Lazzarini - double bass; Raffaele Tiseo – Ist violin and viola d’amore; Paola Beziza – 2nd violin; Rosa Helena Ippolito - viola; Marco Casonato - viola and cello; Vincenzo Vasi - samples, theremin, percussions; Peppe Leone - tambourines

Musical direction: Stefano Nanni

Special guest: Federico Maria Sardelli (flutes)

Verona's Superior Singing Academy: Sonia Peruzzo, Melissa Purnell, Elisa Bonazzi, Ilaria Ribezzi, Gianluca Moro, Marco Tomasoni, Andrea Cortese, Gigi Pirovano

Preparation: Matteo Salvemini

Vinicio Capossela and his ensemble play «Con una rosa»

6th July - Fiesole (FI)

During the Fiesole concert, Capossela has interpreted some parts of Homer's Odyssey. In the image, some reflections from the singer.

«Losing the return»

- 00:00:00

Recording of the Fiesole concert.

13th July - Ludis, Ercolano (NA)

The single act prepared for Ville Vesuviane Festival was called "Ludis", a Latin word that means game, play. It was held in Villa Favorita, where the king Ferdinando IV Bourbon used to play and meet his lovers. So, this concert focused on game and gymnastics in a city like Naples that, from Pulcinella onwards, has always been able to laugh at everything and to convert the game into destiny.

Only when we play we can part from the struggle for the survival. Inventing the game, Man invented art. This is a lesson that Naples has learned very well and that we will try to homage with this particular show.

Vinicio Capossela

For the occasion, a big wheel has been created with which the songs were chosen. This choice was commented by the great actor Mimmo Borrelli.

In the picture, Mimmo Borrelli.

19th and 21st July - with Toscanini Orchestra in Parma and Sassuolo (MO)

La musica di Vinicio Capossela ha sempre avuto organici strumentali inconsueti e partiture che hanno beneficiato di grandi penne dell’arrangiamento orchestrale come Antonio Marangolo, Tommaso Vittorini, Evan Lurie, Enrico Gabrielli, Stefano Nanni. Il repertorio, la varietà timbrica e la complessità armonica si prestano a una scrittura ampliata per orchestra sinfonica, ed è quanto si sperimenterà in questi due atti unici con Orchestra Toscanini, arrangiata e diretta da Stefano Nanni, da molti anni stretto collaboratore del cantautore, che tra Parma e Reggio Emilia si è formato musicalmente.

«Nella mia diseredata gioventù, quando per maneggiare un pianoforte trovavo rifugio presso le corali liriche della città, i miei primi amici musicisti sono stati giovani di varie parti d’Europa che trovavano asilo nell’orchestra giovanile dell’Emilia Romagna A. Toscanini. Fare il mio primo concerto con orchestra sinfonica proprio con la Toscanini è una specie di cerchio che si chiude. È una gioia potere mettere a balia le canzoni nelle stanze timbriche di un corpo orchestrale, abitare tra i fagotti, le viole, le percussioni sinfoniche... Che esperienza di maraviglia. Sarà un poco come avvicinarsi al bosco di Pierino e il lupo e addentrarsi nel fiabesco, un modo senza altra teatralità che non sia la musica di realizzare la sospensione dell’incredulità.

L’orchestra sinfonica, che meraviglioso ottovolante pieno di gelati e ghiaccioli di lacrime al caramello».

Vinicio Capossela

21st July 2017. An extract of the show with Filarmonica Toscanini in Parma.

1st, 2nd, 3rd August - Strikes! in Verucchio (RN), Monforte d'Alba (CN) and Arbatax (OG)

Every time Vinicio Capossela hosted Marc Ribot during his musical career, it was a shipwreck. The two masters of insomnia and mutiny get together for the «Strikes!» tour, for the first time on their own, with a light rhythm backpack, formed by Glauco Zuppiroli and Mirco Mariani.

In the picture, Marc Ribot.

1st August 2017. Strikes! in Verucchio (RN)

The poet Vincenzo Costantino “Cinaski” reads some pages of the book «In Clandestinità».

13th August - Solo concert in Sella Nevea (UD)

7th, 10th, 26th August and 1st, 29 September - Combat Folk

The «Combat Folk» shows were open air revenges that took place in special venues dedicated to folk music; they celebrate the record «Canzoni della Cupa» after the two tours «Polvere» and «Ombra. Canzoni della Cupa e altri spaventi».

These were the dates:

7th August / Ripescia (GR) / Festambiente

10th August / Carpino (FG) / Carpino Folk Festival

26th August / Calitri (AV) / Sponz Fest

1st September / Orvieto (TR) / Umbria Folk Festival

29th September / Cupramontana (AP)

Capossela claimed: «Combat folk is a show where music is the main theme, not the scenario or other. It will feature two trumpets, drums and double bass, guitars, violins and serenades, while screaming "All'incontrè'E", like that Sponz Fest of the lands that inspired this music».

In the picture, Giovannangelo De Gennaro.
In the picture, Victor Herrero.

Winter shadows tour

After earning the 2017 Lunezia Prize for the album «Canzoni della Cupa», Vinicio Capossela was given the important Tenco Prize for his career, an award that is given to musicians who marked a change in music since 1974: artists like Leo Ferré, Georges Brassens, Leonard Cohen, Atahualpa Yupanqui, Tom Waits, Caetano Veloso, Joni Mitchell, Patti Smith, Paolo Conte, Renato Carosone and Franco Battiato are issued of Tenco Prize.

The main theme of the 41st edition of the prize was the sea, so this is the motivation of the award given to Capossela according to Tenco Club:

We saw the departure of his journey in 1989. A journey inside the history of man and music, inside the geography of soul and myth, following sea currents. He took us at Livrono, Hamburg and Athens' harbors; he explored sea music like rebetiko, morna, tango, taranta; he dove into Melville's myths and in Céline's tales. The Tenco Prize must have been given to him during this edition.

For this occasion, Capossela performed a unique show called «Cordàmi», because it was performed only with strings instruments like guitars and many others. He stated: «I gathered this ensemble of strings instruments because they remind us of the nets that are used in the sea».

2017. Interview for Career Prize.

Some reflections of Vinicio Capossela on «Il Cantautore», Club Tenco's magazine.

On «L'Arena».
On larepubblica.it

Winter shadows

The end of the year is that narrow path from which every ghost, specter and shadow coming from the fire must cross. The ancient shadows of winter's rituals blend with personal ones. It is the season of the tale, but also of the great loneliness, of ice and matches. «Ombre nell'inverno» (Winter shadows) will not feature one album only, but all of them. In each of them there is a spectrum that represents again during wintertime: from the folk and popular ones, featured in «Canzoni della Cupa», hidden in the shadow side of the record, to the ballads and the unfinished business of all the other albums.

The concert takes place between shadows and fog, but its structure is free according to repertoire and telling. It will be like sitting around a fire or stand near a dumpster on fire. This series of concerts, realised by International Music and Arts booking agency, ends the journey between the shadows that has started in Spring 2017 with the tour «Ombra», dedicated to «Canzoni della Cupa» and that went on with summer's Single Acts.

The billboard has been realised by Jacopo Leone.