When music goes to meet history: Felice Clemente’s acoustic journey.
What if, for once, we did not ask the audience to go towards the music? “Muri Sonori” (Sounding Walls) starts from the opposite idea: letting the sound leave its usual settings to engage with places full of history, memory and identity. Historic palaces, churches, cloisters and museums are not just venues hosting a concert, but partners that enter the music and become part of it.
On this acoustic journey Felice Clemente crosses heritage sites alone with his saxophones and clarinet, setting classical repertoire, jazz and spontaneous improvisation in dialogue with the acoustics and the spirit of each space. It is the essence of the liner notes Paolo Fresu wrote for his album “Solo” (2020): playing solo is a complex work that lays the artist bare, in the fine balance between composing and performing, not a need for musical solitude but the urge to share one’s soul with the world, in dialogue with a space that belongs to everyone.
On the natural stage of architecture, naves and arches become a new instrument that resonates with the musician’s reeds. The repertoire ranges from original compositions to Bach, Morricone, Marsalis, Hagen and Godard. Through deep listening, each melody takes on a universal dimension beyond performer and composer, and the concert becomes a shared ritual.
Born from a first exploration of the areas of Cremona, Mantua, Monza and Parma, the project is flexible and can be tailored to new places: every city has its own walls to listen to, and every site can suggest a new relationship between music, heritage and people. A proposal designed for municipalities, culture departments, museums and heritage projects.