Third, final appointment with the ‘Spoleto Jazz Season’ Friday 12 November, h 21.00
‘Teatro Caio Melisso – Spazio Carla Fendi’

What Matthias Bartolomey (cello) and Klemens Bittmann (violin and mandola) have in common is their passion for the search for new sounds. They both have a very high level of academic musical training at the Universität für Musik in Graz and Vienna, respectively.

In their pieces, dynamics and intensity vary with sensitivity and precision, the energy of rock alternates with the elegance and intimacy of chamber music, the free inventiveness of jazz also gives way to lyrical and emotional depth. There are references to folk music and, from time to time, classical roots also emerge, never disregarded.

The duo’s subtitle is progressive strings vienna and their philosophy is condensed into these three terms. Progressive is their way of composing, to create a repertoire that is original and aesthetically connected to today’s musical world, while playing instruments that have an ancient tradition: strings.

Vienna is their base: a city that has already been the cradle of avant-garde music in the 19th and 20th centuries. Klemens Bittmann’s use of the mandola – a plucked string instrument from the lute family – is not an extravagant quirk but an element that further expands the duo’s sonic range. Dynamo is their latest album.