Blackbird (R)evolution

Black is the color that clarinet, bass clarinet, piano and Seaboard® have in common. Like the blackbird in the song by Lennon/McCartney, we want to learn how to fly, explore new musical territories, and shape a more authentic and personal voice.

Blackbird (R)evolution features Paolo Gorini on the Roli Seaboard.  Roli says “Keyboards were black and white. We added color and high definition. We started with the Seaboard. A soft, rippling surface of pressure-sensitive silicone, it was the newest thing to happen in the keyboard world since about the year 1700. That was when Bartolomeo Cristofori invented the pianoforte, blowing the minds of harpsichord players by giving them a new way to control sound.

The Seaboard reimagined what a keyboard could do — so much that it surpassed the piano, just as the piano surpassed the harpsichord. The Seaboard launched a family of instruments that let musicians be much more expressive, with more sounds and effects at their fingertips than they ever had before.

Combining digital technologies and a new approach to culturally embedded designs, these instruments look familiar. But they’re light years ahead in their musical powers.”

Blackbird (r)evolution is a canvas of Duo Ebano’s features, like a bizarre mirror where you can dive in. In a mirror, we just see a reflection, which doesn’t necessarily show what we really are. By not accepting the first impression, we can learn how to see beyond the mirror, “take these sunken eyes and learn to see.”

The program represents the soul of Duo Ebano, shifting between standard repertoire and new music. Moreover, it displays composers who try to enhance the clarinet and piano combination, forcing its limits and inventing new ways to make these two instruments communicate, with the intent to achieve a (r)evolution of this set-up.

What to expect from this album? Excitement, fear, kindness, a mother’s song, goosebumps, anxiety, laugh, Radiohead-like moments, mantras, progressive-rock bands, a floating boat in a dark and warm night, a broken carillon, relentlessness, the music of the water.