$25 Seated & $20 Bar/Standing 7:30pm Show Get Tickets Anyone who has attended a solo performance by the Sardinian musician Paolo Angeli—often presented as a single-act piece—knows they are witnessing a Homeric musical journey. It is a voyage of departures and arrivals, where composition and improvisation weave a narrative filled with haunting melodies and concrete sounds that evoke soundscapes ranging from post-industrial to organic. At the heart of the concert is the prepared Sardinian guitar, conceived by Angeli between 1993 and 1996 and perfected over 30 years through three prototypes. This orchestra-instrument, a hybrid between a baritone guitar, a cello, and a drum set, currently features 25 strings, piano-like hammers, propellers for creating drone sounds, movable bridges, and various attachments—evoking the sounds of a harp, electric kalimbas, kora, and sitar. It is played using plucking, a bow, and percussive techniques. Thanks to his innovative approach—ranging from avant-rock walls of sound, desert-like adagios, flamenco compás, Middle Eastern phrasings, and echoes of minimalism—Angeli has forged a hybrid musical poetics that has allowed him to authoritatively renew the language of contemporary guitar playing. The focus of this performance will be LEMA, the musician's latest work, released in 2025. Lema (Spanish for motto or slogan) is a direct synthesis, capable of encompassing the complexity of a musical thought free from genre boundaries, in which Paolo Angeli develops 30 years of coexistence with the prepared Sardinian guitar. It narrates another Mediterranean, one that does not yield to post-colonial folklore, where a temporary texture and an element claiming post-rock thrusts emerge. Openers Laura Harada and Tim O’Keefe will present a set of pieces from the traditional and contemporary Levantine Arab music repertoire as well as one or two original pieces. Expect to hear Arab microtonal modes and improvisation performed on Arabic-tuned violin, oud, buzuq, and traditional percussion instruments. ⊹ Paolo Angeli is considered one of the most important innovators on the international music scene. Originally from Palau (at the northern tip of Sardinia), he grew up with his gaze turned toward the sea. Starting from the traditional instrument, thanks to a decade-long apprenticeship with master Giovanni Scanu and the influences of 20th-century avant-garde visionaries, he created the prepared Sardinian guitar, a true orchestra-instrument. Since the mid-1990s, he has embraced influences from free jazz, folk noise, minimal pop, contemporary flamenco, Arabic music, and post-rock, reaching at a synthesis that brings Sardinian traditional music into the contemporary world. Improvisation is the driving force behind Paolo Angeli’s 30-year career, not only as a means of connecting and developing compositional structures but also as a practice of communication among musicians from diverse latitudes and musical cultures. His journey reac...
