Italy's Songstress Verdiana Raw Performing at SxSW
By: Rebecca Russo Feb. 24, 2017
Florence, Italy-based singer/songwriter Verdiana Raw will be making two appearances at this year's SxSW Music Festival. Her singing will be accompanied by a viola player and her own piano playing. The performances will be:
Wednesday March 15
Numero 28, 452 W. 2nd Street (Official showcase sponsored by Fimi (Italian Music Industry Association)+Ice (www.ice.it) from 2:00PM - 6:00PM
Thursday, March 16
St David's Historic Sanctuary, 301 E 8th Street
Last year, she released Whales Know The Route, her second album from It was recorded and mixed at Blue Velvet Studio, co-produced by Paolo Favati and Verdiana Raw. Whales Know The Route was released in 2016 by Pippola Music. I hope you'll make a point of attending one of her shows. She will be available for in person interviews throughout the Festival. You can view the video for "Time Is Circular," here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UCc_6NbK7A&feature=youtu.be
The new album features Raw: voice, piano, violin, Organetto Frontalini; Erika Giansanti: viola, violin, cello; Antonio Bacchi: guitars; Fabio Chiari: drums; Paolo Favati: bass. Paolo Favati's production is crucial. He encouraged Raw to let her compositions expand into wonderfully complex forms. This stylistic growth was also supported by the contributions of viola player Erika Giansanti, a musician of great sensitivity who blends rock and classical influences.
The album's concept centers on the metaphor of the Whale, which represents the millenial memory of our world. It's the voice of profound and authentic emotions and instincts which we listen to all too seldoM. Verdiana relates all that things to the feminine strength and intuition that flows from motherhood. 'Whales know the route' refers to the fact that whales navigate vast oceans without getting lost using their animal instincts.
Whales Know The Route comes four years after Verdiana's debut Metaxy. During those years, Raw became deeply immersed in the study of music therapy at Florence's Center for Artistic and Musical Studies, an experience that led her to a substantially different vision of music. Whales Know The Route reveals a new approach to lyric writing and more conscious use of the expressive potentials of her voice, more focused on serving the songs' structures, more concrete and concise. So this is an important album for Raw, a bridge, a springboard to other ways of singing and conceiving musical structure.
The choice of the songs didn't have a logical explanation, but was based on an instinctual approach, putting together different atmospheres combined by the desire to communicate in a simple but polished way.
Videos
