The Gaulitana: A Festival of Music passed into its sixth representation – and incidentally its first mid-week representation – this evening with the concert of the Italian percussion group Groove Ensemble held at the Gozo Ministry Courtyard, St. Francis Square, Victoria, at 8.00 p.m.
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The Groove Ensemble is a percussion quartet which was formed during the autumn of 2006 with the express intention of creating percussion music in different artistic styles. This project was initiated at the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi of Turin, an Italian music school with a great history in the classical tradition. Whilst still studying, Ruben Bellvia, Alan Brunetta, Elisa di Dio and Andrea Vigliocco started performing together finding great support for their initiative by the Conservatorio.
These four members have now graduated and they have extended their concert activity and have performed in Italy and abroad, their most recent overseas performance was at Bastia, Corsica, at the Racontres Musicales de Mediterraneè last November, and now this performance in Gozo, Malta. Their repertoir consists of contemporary compositions by G. Sollima, N. Zivckovic, J. Thrower and F. Zappa, and interpreting these compositions in a very original style. Currently the group is compiling a CD.
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In this representation the Groove Ensemble presented a diverse and stunning performance both on traditional percussion instruments such as a set of drums and tom-toms, as well as three pieces played entirely on different instruments such as a set of pans set on a table and literally musical instruments made out of trash material such as four dustbins and two empty water bottles! These last two pieces literally left the very numerous audience, which included the Hon. Anton Tabone, the speaker of the last legislature, open mouthed.
The evenng started off with the group using normal percussion instuments and regaled the audience with Greetings to Hermann by Hans Göther Brodmann, List Off by Russel Peck, and Drumming by Steve Reich.
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The evening then diversed into the non-traditional percusssion instruments with Changing Pattern by Herman Regner which was played on the pots and pans set, Living Room Music by John Cage which consisted of sounds mouthed off by four people reading newspapers, Pieces of Wood by Steve Reich played by hitting four different wooden pieces and lastly Trash by Gerard Brophy which
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literally was played on instruments meant to hold trash such as a large overturned plastic dustbin, three overturned metal dustbins and two large empty water bottles!
Altogether this was a very thoroughly enjoyable evening for those present for the performance.
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