OFFICIAL ALBUM PRESENTATION
Friday, September 29, 6 p.m.
POLO DEL '900, TURIN

in collaboration with FONDAZIONE DONAT-CATTIN

Michele L. Straniero, inventor of the "Cantacronache" and actual founding father of Italian songwriting, is revived through a series of unpublished writings set to music and sung by Michele Gazich and Federico Sirianni, on the idea of his nephew Giovanni, who has rediscovered texts and poems that have never been published before.

These are different words from those we are used to thinking about the great history of the "Cantacronache," putting aside political-social invective to focus on a personal feeling that is reflective, painful, sometimes ironic and sometimes moving.

Gazich and Sirianni have put their hand to these writings with care and attention, making them true songs: eight texts by Straniero and two songs inspired by him, which compose a mosaic of deep humanity and commitment, faithful and respectful, and which, if conceptually they differ substantially from the "Cantacronache" style, at the level of musical production maintain the essential and acoustic taste that characterized that great adventure and which remains reproduced, as on the album, during live presentations.

The album, played entirely by Gazich and Sirianni with the collaboration of Marco "Tibu" Lamberti, recorded at the historic Transeuropa Recording studio in Turin by Fabrizio "Cit" Chiapello and published by Valter Colle for Nota Editrice, features contributions from numerous guests who wanted to participate in the project: from Moni Ovadia to Fausto Amodei, from Gualtiero Bertelli to Giovanna Marini and then Maurizio Bettelli, Andrea Del Favero, Giovanna Famulari, Alessio Lega, Paolo Lucà, Giangilberto Monti and Giovanni Straniero.

So this is no exhumed Michele L. Straniero for song philologists, here music and lyrics shine alive, powerful, brazen, unapologetic, urgent.

Here there is no time for circumlocutions, for "tomorrow you live and die."

MICHELE GAZICH

Michele Gazich is a musician, poet, artistic producer, composer, and songwriter. Professionally in music since the early 1990s: tours in Italy, Europe and the USA, Collaborations with Italian, European and US singer-songwriters (Michelle Shocked, Mary Gauthier, Eric Andersen and Mark Olson); orchestras; theatrical performances; poet performances; film scores; Italian and foreign universities and conservatories. More than 50 albums recorded and 11 under his own name. Guest at Spanish Senate, 2015; Tenco Award finalist, 2017; Grammy Awards nomination (with Mary Gauthier), 2019.

FEDERICO SIRIANNI

A very young guest at the Tenco Prize, he won the Critics' Prize at the Musicultura Festival in Recanati, the Bindi Prize, the Lunezia Doc Prize, the City of Quiliano Prize for Musica d'Autore and received the Club Tenco Special Mention for the Musica contro le mafie event. He has released five albums, the latest of which "Maqroll" was among the five finalists for the Targa Tenco 2022 in the "Best Overall Album of the Year" category.