Sentieri Selvaggi & Eugenio Finardi

OMAGGIO A VLADIMIR VYSOTSKY

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13 november, h. 20.30

TEATRO OLIMPICO

Eugenio Finardi has given voice to the songs of Vladimir Vysotsky, the insubordinate and rebellious Russian artist, whose songs have been arranged by Filippo Del Corno and performed by the Sentieri selvaggi ensemble in a concert featuring outstanding music.
Vysotsky (or Visockij: 1938 - 1979) was a strange brew, an unlikely combination between a chansonnier and a punk rocker. An off stream poet, actor and musician whose lyrics were a searing indictment on the Stalinist regime. This unsung hero of the Soviet Era was known though home recorded cassettes, reproduced by the millions and distributed illegally throughout the country. A success that the government was unable to counter, forcing it to close an eye, if not both, when, for example, the producers of a very popular cartoon made one of the characters - a wolf -  whistle a famous Vysotsky tune.
Now that the Soviet Union no longer exists, the lyrics of Vysotsky’s songs - defined as music of the streets, courtyards or of the underworld - have acquired new meaning as a rebellion against domineering power and an emblem of freedom.
It is not easy to interpret the songs of Vysotsky, remembered also as an exuberant actor who offered memorable interpretations of characters such as Don Giovanni - in Puskin’s version - or Hamlet, the latter coming on stage with a guitar. His powerful singing style focused more on expressivity than on phrasal clarity or on pitch, not to mention the difficulty of fixing in a definitive version his songs, which he considered as work in progress.
So, then, how should one go about in imitating him? Ultimately the decision taken was not to imitate him but to consider him as an author - an author to be interpreted with the contemporary touch of Del Corno’s arrangements, and performed with the clarity and talent of Sentieri selvaggi, the ensemble directed by Carlo Boccadoro. Added value is of course provided by Eugenio Finardi, the artist who combines lyrical expressivity with the catharsis of the fine storyteller.

Sentieri selvaggi is a group made up of some of the best Italian musicians, united in a cultural project that wants to bring contemporary music to a larger audience. The group, founded in 1997 by Carlo Boccadoro, Filippo Del Corno, Angelo Miotto, in the eight following years has acquired important successes. The group has established a close working relationship with composers such as Philip Glass, Michael Nyman, David Lang, James MacMillan and Louis Andriessen, who choose Sentieri selvaggi ensemble to perform in Italy their compositions, some of which are written specifically for the group.
Singer, lyricist, guitarist and pianist. Eugenio Finardi was born in 1952 in Milan. In 1975 he released his first album, for “Cramps”, a pioneering “alternative” label, which single-handedly created Italian rock, blending lyrics inspired by the cultural and political issues of the seventies “movement” Finardi has never stopped growing as a musician and producer and this constant evolution has kept him at the forefront of musical research, while his lyrics always stay in touch with the feelings of the times.