Solis String Quartet_bio eng

Solis String Quartet
Vincenzo Di Donna - Violin
Gerardo Morrone – Viola
Luigi De Maio – Violin
Antonio Di Francia - Cello
Style, talent and artistic taste are the ingredients
that made the Solis String Quartet a musical
project with an international flavour.
Solis was born from the magical encounter in
Neapolitan land of 4 Neapolitan composers and
arrangers: Vincenzo Di Donna (Violin), Gerardo
Morrone (Viola), Antonio Di Francia (Cello), Luigi
De Maio (Violin).
Their artistic proposal is marked from the
beginning (it was 1991) by a wise originality
able to mix jazz, world music, pop and
contemporary music: a gift that, combined with
the technique learned in the years of the Conservatory of San Pietro a Maiella in
Naples, brought them to work with big names in the international scene.
Among these names stand out Dulce Pontes, Andrea Vollenweider, Pat Metheney,
Richard Galliano, Jimmy Cliff, Maria Joao, Omar Sosa, Hevia and Noa: and it is this
last association with the Israelian artist to bring the Solis to embark on a European
tour and record, in Israel, a double album and DVD called LIVE in ISRAEL- “Noa &
Solis”.
But there are also collaborations with leading figures of Italian music as Claudio
Baglioni, Adriano Celentano, Eugenio Finardi, Edoardo Bennato, Rossana Casale,
Elisa, Ornella Vanoni, Paola Turci, PFM, Raf, Ivana Spagna, Simona Molinari, Max
Pezzali, Avion Travel, 99Posse, to name a few.
Among the many events worth remembering: The Pavarotti & Friends in 1996,
together with Edoardo Bennato, the two partecipations in competition at the Festival
of Sanremo, paired first with Elisa in 2001 and again in 2006 with Noa, Carlo
Fava and again in 2010 as guests of the young talent Marco Mengoni, on the
evening of Sanremo dedicated to duets with an arrangement for solo quartet of the
song “Credimi ancora”.
A partnership of excellence is also the one with the band from Salento (Puglia region)
Negramaro, with whom the Solis String Quartet collaborated on the album “La
Finestra” and participated as a guest at the concert event held by Negramaro at San
Siro stadium before more than 50,000 people in May 2008.
The discography of the band has three episodes: “METRÒ” in 2001 (BMG) and
“Promenade” of 2006 (EDEL), while in November 2009 publishes by The Universal
the album “R. Evolution”.
“R. Evolution” comes from the idea of interpreting Solis songs and music of Italian
authors through a way absolutely new and creative. On the record we find fifteen
partners, such as Jovanotti and Sugar, Negramaro, Gaetano Curreri, and then
Carmen Consoli, Franco Battiato, Ivano Fossati, Gianna Nannini and Edoardo
Bennato, Max Pezzali, Raf, Fiorella Mannoia, Daniele Silvestri, Roberto Vecchioni
and Michele Zarrillo, all of them quoted in random order, and to which go our
sincere thanks for taking part in this new step through the journey of Solis.
R. Evolution live debut took place on the stage of “Parla con me” TV show on channel
RAI 3 in December 2009, conducted by Serena Dandini e Dario Vergassola, and
has since developed into a tour that gone around Clubs and Theatres of all Italy
between February and May 2010.
“Canti Naviganti”, finally, is the title of the latest live project of the group in a
chronological sense, and was born from the encounter with the Portuguese singer
Tereza SALGUEIRO.
This last project enriches the offer of the group and add itself to another project
entitled “Mediterranean Sonoro” that Solis proposes for the concert season
2010/2011.
http://www.solis.it/
[email protected]
October 2012