The Gruppo di Improvvisazione Giallo is a new project initiated by Hanno Leichtmann and is influenced by the musician and sound artist’s love for the soundtracks of the Italian crime and thriller movie genre of the late 1960s and 1970s commonly known as GIALLO (yellow), named after the dominant colour of the covers of the pulp novels that inspired it.
The project pays homage to them and the towering legacy of the composer-performer collective Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza and one of its leading figures, Ennio Morricone, who also composed dozens of giallo scores. Hanno Leichtmann, improv legend Magda Mayas, vocalist and electronic music composer Sara Persico and the electro-acoustic maverick Valerio Tricoli will reappraise the group’s concept of spontaneous composition in the framework of their debut concert at Berlin’s Morphine Raum.
Taking inspiration from the giallo tradition as well as Morricone and Bruno Nicolai’s massive early 1970s masterpiece »Dimensioni Sonore – Musiche Per L’Immagine E L’Immaginazione,« the quartet features Leichtmann working percussion sounds sampled from giallo soundtracks alongside Mayas on prepared piano and clavinet, Persico on electronics and vocal duties, and Tricoli on the reel to reel recorder Revox B77 that also allows him to sample and process the ensembles output in real-time.
While some of the different players in the Gruppo di Improvvisazione Giallo share a history—Leichtmann has released several albums together with Tricoli and recently collaborated with Mayas for their sound installation/concert piece »Le Cercle Rouge« — their debut concert will be an experiment that brings together their respective artistic visions for the first time. This four-way dialogue combines the sense of mystery and suspense of the giallo genre with the radicality of the avant-garde.
