Press from the label:
Renowned on the international scene as one of the world’s greatest melodeon players, RICCARDO TESI is back with a new CD that is one of the best he’s ever done, brimming with inventive spark and backed up by his usual meticulous research on the Italian folk music heritage. On this occasion the object of interest, to be rediscovered or reinvented, is the folk tradition of the Apennines around the Bologna region. Not by chance is the new CD entitled Crinali (Ridges), underlining, not only metaphorically, the variety of perspectives that open to our gaze when we climb a mountain. Not to mention the notions of exchange and the reciprocal influence of elements of different cultures the word ridge implies in the sense of a border, but equally a point of contact between two world/visions. From the crest of a mountain, we can see the surrounding plain and with a bit of imagination even glimpse the sea. Conceived by RICCARDO TESI and Claudio Carboni with ethnomusicological assistance from Placida Staro, Crinali offers the listener a wonderful variety of ballads, polkas, mazurkas, lullabies, stornelli, tangos, dances, work songs, waltzes and marches, a multifaceted repertoire executed with equally eclectic vision, where each piece (often presented in the form of short suites) has its own precise emotional connotation. Much like life, the CD, wanders pleasantly between different, highly mutable states of mind, going from dreamy romanticism to intense sensorial catharsis, melancholic introspection to festive fun, cutting irony to profound spirituality, the awakening of social conscience to the desire to escape, all transposed into a decidedly contemporary key that without betraying the sense of a still living past, is drawn to experimentation and research.

Among the troupe of excellent musicians RICCARDO TESI has gathered for this CD are Ginevra di Marco (ex vocalist of C.S.I. and P.G.R.), his stalwart backing band, Banditaliana comprising Claudio Carboni on sax, Maurizio Geri on guitar and vocals and percussionists Ettore Bonafé and Marco Fadda; not forgetting the important contributions of Nico Gori on clarinet, Stefano Melone (Fossati collaborator) on pianoforte and Roberto Melone on bass.