DESCRIPTION:
Andrea Centazzo Mitteleuropa Orchestra has been a project commissioned in 1979 by the City Cultural Affairs Department in Bologna, Italy. The line up was flexible and variable, depending on the performance requirements, but it retained its essential character thanks to a fixed nucleus of musicians. The orchestra's physiognomy distanced it from the "classical" jazz big bands and
aligned it more with contemporary chamber music formations.
Mitteleuropa gave its debut concert in Bologna in early 1980, and in December of that same year recorded "Mitteleuropa Live", live in concert at the Testoni Theatre in Bologna. This is the opening number of that night.
All music composed, orchestrated, conducted and performed by Andrea Centazzo Copyright 1980-2012
Andrea Centazzo is an award winning Italian-American music composer, percussionist, conductor, author, inventor and multimedia artist who writes concerts, operas, symphonies, soundtracks and chamber music in a peculiar style mixing minimal music, percussion music, world music, jazz and alternate rock loops.
Centazzo also directed several films, videos, video music clips and theatrical plays with Lumi Cavazos, Ottavia Piccolo, Massimo Dapporto, Moni Ovadia, Giorgio Albertazzi, Anna Proclemer, etc.
Centazzo's one of the top improvised music players, co-founder of the Downtown Music scene in the 80s: he played and recorded with Steve Lacy, John Zorn, Tom Corra, Henry Kaiser, LaDonna Smith, Davey Williams, Don Cherry, Lester Bowie, John Carter, Lol Coxhill, Evan Parker, Derek Bailey, Chris Cocharane, Elliott Sharp, Anthony Coleman, Toshinori Kondo, Alvin Curran, Tony Oxley, Paul Lytton, Pierre Favre, David Moss, Alex Cline, Steve Hubback, Enrico Rava, Barry Guy, Fred Frith, Eugene Chadbourne, Vinnie Golia, Marco Cappelli, Hideki Kato, Carlos Zingaro, Franz Koglmann, Theo Joergesmann, Albert Mangellsdorf, Gianluigi Trovesi, Kent Carter, Mitteleuropa Orchestra, Don Preston, ROVA saxophone quartet, Gino Robair and shared the stage with Philip Glass, John Cage, Sylvano Bussotti, Luigi Nono, Giancarlo Cardini, Karl Berger, Jon Hassell, Paul Motian, Andrew Cyrille, Max Roach, Chick Corea, Gary Burton, Steve Reich, Terry Riley, Charlie Mingus, Globe Unit, Peter Brotzmann, Alexander von Schlippenbach.
He was the inventor of UFIP ICEBELL before join PAISTE, REMO, VICK FIRTH as top endorser.
Centazzo wrote 6 musicology books including New Percussion Techniques, Music Instruments, Edgar Varese and DRUM SET HISTORY.
His work could be found in the following genres: New Jazz, Improvised Music, Minimal Music, Gong music, Meditation Music, World Music, Balinese Music, Chamber Music, Symphonic Requiem Music, Classic Music, Percussion Music, Percussion Ensemble Music, Solo Percussion Music, String Quartet Music, Chamber Music, Piano Music, Ensemble Music, Ethnic Music.
His compositions and recordings are published by ICTUS RECORDS, WARNER CHAPPELL, RAI, RICORDI, PDU, METALANGUAGE, PARACHUTE, TRANSMUSEQ, BBC, CBS, PBS. He recently performed at The Stone, Roulette, Columbia University New York, Northwestern University Chicago, UCLA, USC, Caltech, NASA Los Angeles, UC Berkley, Hamburg Opera, Teatro Comunale Bologna, Teatro Comunale Trieste, Utah University, LIGO, EPA, Vietnam, Japan, Indonesia, Italy, USA, Germany.
Some of his works were inspired by and dedicated to Leonardo da Vinci, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Buddha, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Giacomo Leopardi, Jack Kerouac, Bruce Chatwin, Frank Zappa, Philip Dick, Ernest Hemingway, Tina Modotti, Frida Khalo, Diego Rivera, Edward Weston, etc.