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Many people in Italy are familiar with Battista Lena's music, even though most of them probably do not associate it with Lena's name. This is often the fate of those who compose for cinema. Images from films that remain in our visual memory are firmly associated with the accompanying music, they become one with it and you realise that they could not live without it. But the music always remains at the service of the images that unfold on the screen it underscores events and emotions with subliminal discretion and a certain understatement. Only the more inquisitive among us read through the film credits or posters to find out who wrote the music. Those who follow the work of the younger Italian film directors will be famliar with the name of Battista Lena, as he has composed the music for films by Francesca Archibugi and Paolo Virzi (the Italian titles of these films are II grande cocomero, Mignon è partita, Verso sera and Ferie d'agosto)
Those who follow Italian jazz will undoubtedly have known about Lena for some time, as a fine guitarist on numerous recordings by Roberto Gatto (with whom he has shared a good part of his career) and by 102">Enrico Rava. With Rava he took part in the award-winning project Rava L'Opéra Va.
Photograph : All right reserved.
Lena was born in 1960 and comes from Viareggio. Like many of his contemporaries, he does not like to be confined within the limits of rigid genres. In the side of contemporary classic music he has colaborated with the chamber group Caronte, the Logos Ensemble, and the young Perugia-based composer Tonino Battista. He has given guitar master classes at Siena and he has performed at the major European jazz festivals and with important Jazz musicians such as John Scofield, Massimo Urbani and Daniel Humair. The beauty of Battista Lena’s art is that the many, heterogenous facets of his music merge together into a synthesis in which Jazz, popular tradition, classical culture and film music form a glorious mix. The result is a colourful melting pot of Italian sounds and melodies.
For Banda Sonora, Battista Lena had the original idea of bringing together a handful of jazz musician colleagues and a town band. The musicians are Lena, Enrico Rava, Gianni Coscia, Gabriele Mirabissi, Enzo Pietropaoli, Marcello di Leonardo and the band is from the town of Chianciano Terme and is conducted by Paolo Scatena. Battista Lena believes a great deal in this youthful creation which, in orchestral and compositional terms, is an extension of the music he wrote for the film Ferie d'Agosto
Rehearsals took place throughout the winter, and the result, says Lena, is "a very rich musical experience, but what is perhaps even more important is that it has also been a profoundly human one". This is because the town band in question is, like any self-respecting town band, made up of amateur musicians who are used to playing a completely different kind of repertoir. Lena's challenge has been to preserve the freshness and vitality of the band while at the same time utilising it to best effect for the music that he has composed. The result is a balanced mix of Improvisation and written melody, of irony and popular poetry.
Paolo Occhiuto
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