Primavera Mood – Open Air Music Festival

Istituto Svizzero is excited to once again host an evening full of concerts in the garden of Villa Maraini. For this year’s edition, we have joined forces with Moods Jazz Association to create a rich and varied musical programme.

This special evening opens with the Italian duo O-Janà, taking the stage with a concert that ranges from electronics to songwriting to free-improvisation. Performing after them, the Zurich based group Trio Heinz Herbert will celebrate the release of their highly original, unconventional album Yes, which contains traces from the ’70s free jazz psychedelics and particles of contemporary club culture. The honour of closing the night goes to the Swiss-German duo Me & Mobi, who will round off the programme with a powerful live-performance, disrupting musical conventions and overriding genre pre-sets.

The garden of Villa Maraini will open its gates at 19:30 – one hour before the first performance at 20:30. It will also be a chance for the public to view Sylvie Fleury’s exhibition ‘Chaussures italiennes’, which will be open from 19:30 – 21:30.

Come hungry! MONK Roma will offer a variety of beverages and serve you quick and delicious food for all tastes and diets.

O – Janà
O-Janà is a duo that brings together singer Ludovica Manzo and electronic musician/pianist Alessandra Bossa, two composers and improvisers with different backgrounds. The combination of these two artists, each charged with spontaneity, curiosity and audacity, is exciting and the result of it is a music which moves from electronics to songwriting to free-improvisation.
The main characteristic of the duo is to expand boundaries in exploring and experimenting in the field of song composition and free improvisation, working on their own original material. Compositions are characterized by smooth and liquid soundscapes with melodies lying on a mix of prepared piano and electronic sounds while their lyrics are, by turns, funny or poignant or thought-provoking. Although they are always looking for the clear structure and the “song” form, O-Janà’s concerts have a strong free improvisational component where sounds can sometimes evolve into distorted beats and jagged lines.
O-Janà has performed in several festivals and venues in Italy and abroad. Their first self-titled Ep was recorded at The Academy of Music and Drama of Göteborg (Sweden) and released in May 2012. An extract from this album was also used as the soundtrack for the short film Tram Mob, by Maude (2012) and for videos Il mondo in un minuto of Repubblica Tv.
Since 2013 O-Janà have collaborated with percussionist/drummer Michele Rabbia. They released together the album Inland Images (Folderol Records, 2018) in which also appears the Norwegian guitarist Eivind Aarset.

Me & Mobi
Get ready for a dose of Post-Jazz, dystopian sci-fi eclectica.
When you think of a contemporary jazz duo, techno music, Japanese anime or dystopian sci-fi, aren’t the first things that come to mind. Yet, the Swiss-German outfit known as Me&Mobi used these exact coordinates, along with a whole array of very unique personal obsessions (mostly with the under-belly of pop-culture) to forge their rich, idiosyncratic sound from. Their forthcoming sophomore full-length, titled Agglo (short for an urban agglomeration), is a meticulously curated instrumental soundtrack, one that manages to be extremely captivating, all the while violently disrupting musical conventions and overriding genre presets.

Trio Heinz Herbert
Blending free jazz, electronic music, glitch, and collective improvisation, the Swiss trio of Dominic Landolt on guitar & effects, Ramon Landolt on synth, samples & piano, and Mario Hanni on drums & effects, bring a modern and experimental edge to their diverse approaches to free improvisation, coloured with electronica and rock overtones; a fascinating brew.