Ora Etta Scollo

• 1 C'è una pace 02:42
• 2 Von der Freundlichkeit der Welt / Avò 03:19
• 3 Cose da dire, da tacere 03:27
• 4 Lingua e dialettu 04:00
• 5 Cantanotte 02:33
• 6 Ialofru 01:52
• 7 A notti u dici o jornu 03:44
• 8 Alle fronde dei salici 02:46
• 9 Vivere è stare svegli 03:03
• 10 Fuga in La minore 02:24
• 11 La cifalota 02:49
• 12 A-ttia 02:00
• 13 Ora 02:54
• Total Runtime 37:33

Info for Ora

Be in the now: A doctrine that has been propounded by spiritual teachers and philosophers for millennia. But is the "now" worth striving for in these times of crisis and war? With her new opus "Ora", Sicilian musician Etta Scollo provides a musically multi-faceted reply. Not content with simple and easy platitudes, she keeps the dramaturgical tension high, surprising us anew with each piece. In her first home Catania, she and star producer Taketo Gohara have brought forth an album that touches listeners, both poetically and politically, with more than a little glimmer of hope.

"I stand up, I stand upright, my hand is working, it accompanies a song about things concrete, experienced and immediately reborn. It's time to be - now, now, now..." sings Etta Scollo in the title track and closing song of "Ora." "The pandemic threw us into a musical lethargy," she says. "Suddenly everything was gone, I had no perspective and didn’t sing a note. Then I got busy working physically: I hammered nails into the walls of my new apartment, installed lamps, mounted shelves. It was clear to me that I needed to feel my body, to feel human again in this avonbeywful time of isolation." Scollo says that the impulses she needs to create her art come through touch, tinkering, constructing, tactile exchanges. She speaks of the strong relationship she has, not only with her voice and thoughts, but with her hands as well. Out of this touching and doing, out of this reawakening, an album emerges that is shocking in its directness and astounding in its diversity. It all begins with a circular, four-meter-high room in her new Sicilian home. This she leaves to Taketo Gohara to arrange acoustically. The Milan-born Japanese producer, who has already used his acoustic talents in his work with stars such as the Cantautore Vinicio Capossela and pop singer Elisa, prepares the location, aided by sound engineer Niccolò Fornabaio: "Taketo wanted the production to remain very raw, and he let everything get very close to my voice," says Scollo. "When I was singing, I didn't feel like I had headphones on at all. I felt very much within myself. Taketo recognized which songs needed more intimacy; he also encouraged me to sing softly too, but not necessarily to always intonate 'beautifully'. Indeed, I am not a perfect person, I’m a hurt person as well. And hurt can't be truly transmitted with a voice that only expresses contrived beauty."

Musically, "Ora" captures a whole universe: there are completely naked pieces accompanied only by guitar, sounds from the tradition of Sicily, swirling waltzes and ironic six-eighth bars. There is the subtle coloring of strings, an intimate meeting of brass band and Renaissance choir and electronic textures as well: "Each setting stands for a moment that was once important in my life," emphasizes Scollo. From these very diverse colors, Gohara creates a special dramaturgy. His goal is not to bundle the songs in a "pleasant flow", but to create an “edginess” between the compositions, to allow for disruption, to bring a new surprise with each piece.

The pulse of the words comes once again from the Sicilian poets that Scollo so reveres. There is Nobel Prize winner Salvatore Quasimodo, who in “Alle Fronde Dei Salici” tells of how musicians hung their instruments on the trees out of grief over the German atrocities during World Wat II. Etta Scollo's musical rendering is a shock-like response to the first day of the war of aggression against the Ukraine. Then there is Ignazio Buttitta, whom she admires for his political commitment to language: In “Lingua e Dialettu”, she uses the metaphor of mother’s milk to set his strong images of identity and against the anonymization of language into music, with a gladiatorial yet sensitive march.

In “A Notti u rici o jornu” she honors Franco Scaldati, the friend, the gentle man of the theater and night person. Using only a string arrangement she wrote herself, she creates a nocturnal scenario in which peoples’ shadows meet before the actual persons themselves. What a contrast then is her second night song “Cantanotte”, an approach towards to the 19th century poet Mariannina Coffa who, every night, fled from an unhappy marriage into her own world of lyricism: what we hear is the original poetry in the form of a festive waltz employing the Theremin, the only instrument played without being touched. It’s unique sound perfectly transports the listener into this realm of fantasy.

German actress Hanna Schygulla, a close friend of Scollo's, is a surprise guest. Together they create the bitter Brecht/Eisler song "Of the Kindness of the World": "In Brecht’s lyrics, the child is abandoned by its father, it is a war situation, and yet the women seek to convey the feeling of an embrace. With her beautiful dark voice, Hanna then begins to sing the Sicilian lullaby 'Avò: It feels like a like a light at the end of the tunnel." And finally, continuing with the mother-child theme, another Scollo text, "Fuga In La Minore". Using musical vocabulary, it tells of flight (in Italian, also referred to by the word "fuga", just like "fugue,"!). Here she confronts the reality of today's migration with a bitter, almost cartoonish irony. That, too, is caught again in an embrace and thus resolved.

"Ora" does not flee from the many problems of our time into “feel-good” sound. Etta Scollo's new work faces the challenges of today with profound, committed poetry, the musical ladle dipping freely into many old and new sources. It is precisely through this undaunted creativity and uprightness that it becomes a convincing statement against lethargy, against isolation and “contactlessness." Indeed "Ora" is even more: a courageous, open affirmation of life in the midst of storm and ashes, of the courage to love without hesitation.

Etta Scollo, voice, guitar
Daniel Moheit, accordion, various sound instruments
Zoé Cartier, cello

Etta Scollo
Geboren in Catania, Sizilien. 1983 gewann Etta Scollo den ersten Preis beim “Diano Marina Jazz Festival“, geleitet vom Jazzkomponisten Giorgio Gaslini. Zur gleichen Zeit nahm sie ein Gesangsstudium am Konservatorium in Wien auf und arbeitete bei Schallplattenaufnahmen und Konzerten mit Künstlern wie Eddie Lockjaw Davis, Sunnyland Slim e Champion Jack Dupree zusammen. 1988 veröffentlichte sie die italienischen Version des Beatles-Songs “Oh Darling“ der wochenlang die österreichischen Musik-Charts anführte und ihr eine Goldene Schallplatte einbrachte.

Als Etta Scollo in den 90er Jahren nach Hamburg zog, schlug ihre Karriere eine andere Richtung ein. Sie komponierte “Blu:” aufgenommen mit dem London Session Orchestra (dirigiert von Will Malone) und Tonspuren für Filme, u.a. für den Film “Bad Guy” des koreanischen Regissuers Kim Ki-Duk. In dieser Zeit erschienen ihre Alben “Il bianco del tempo” und “Casa“.

Für ihr Projekt Canta Ro‘, der sizilianischen Volkssängerin Rosa Balistreri gewidmet und erschienen als Doppel-CD/DVD, erhielt sie 2005 den “Premio Pino Veneziano“, 2007 den “Weltmusikpreis Ruth” und 2008 den “Premio Rosa Balistreri-Alberto Favara VIII“.

Von diesem Moment an widmete sich Etta Scollo verstärkt der traditionellen Musik, ihrer Erforschung, Verarbeitung und Neuinterpretation. Daraus entwickelte sich das poetisch-musikalische Projekt Il fiore splendente, eine Hommage an die arabisch-sizilianischen Dichter des 9.-12. Jahrhunderts. An diesem Projekt beteiligten sich namhafte Künstler wie Franco Battiato, Giovanni Sollima, Markus Stockhausen und Nabil Salameh.

2009 sang Etta Scollo die Partie der Helena in der musikalischen Verabeitung von Goethes Faust II des zeitgenössischen deutschen Komponisten Karsten Gundermann, aufgeführt von der Deutschen Kammerphilharmonie unter der Leitung von Alexander Shelley. Im gleichen Jahr bearbeitete sie die Musik von Giuseppe Verdi für eine moderne Inszenierung des Rigoletto an der Neuköllner Oper in Berlin.

Im November 2010 interpretierte Etta Scollo die Rolle der Alice in der Oper Alice im Wunderland am Teatro Massimo in Palermo.

2011 erschien ihre CD Cuoresenza, ein musikalischer Monolog über die Liebe in all ihren Aspekten und Facetten.

2014 erschien Lunaria, die musikalische Umsetzung des barocken Märchens Lunaria von Vincenzo Consolo.

2015 wurde die CD Tempo al Tempo veröffentlicht. Es ist eine Hommage an die Zeit und im Duo mit der Cellistin Susanne Paul entstanden.

Etta Scollo tourt ebenso mit dem literarisch-musikalischen Programm Parlami d’amore mit Liedern und Geschichten über die Liebe. DieTexte werden von den Schauspielern Rolf Becker oder Joachim Król vorgetragen.

Etta Scollo lebt in Berlin und Sizilien.

This album contains no booklet.