ARPEGGIO ELETTRICO is the concert by Antonella Ruggiero with Adriano Sangineto on the Celtic harp and bass clarinet and Roberto Colombo on the vocoder, liturgical organ and bass synth: it is a proposal of considerable charm that debuted in July 2021 in the Roman Theater in Verona.

Adriano Sangineto’s Celtic harp is, here and there, treated with effects that radically modify its sonority, enriching its sound, creating fascinating sound spaces. The interventions on the bass clarinet contribute to making the two pieces featuring this instrument special.

The equally unusual sound of Roberto Colombo’s vocoder creates a suggestive choral sound that, together with the sound of the liturgical organ, gives breadth to the entire performance. In another way, the vocoder has the function of vocal support for the synth bass that supports the harp accompaniment.

On these particular sounds, Antonella Ruggiero's voice has the opportunity to express itself in the interpretation of the vast repertoire from which the "electric arpeggio" lineup is composed from time to time: it passes through singer-songwriter music, ethnic music, sacred music and the songs interpreted by Antonella over the years.

The restoration of the Mascioni organ in Cremona Cathedral opened the collaboration between Antonella Ruggiero and Maestro Fausto Caporali, resident organist and professor at the Turin Conservatory, thus creating the opportunity to realize a long-cherished project: a concert and the resulting concept album “Cattedrali” dedicated to the virtuoso emotional intertwining of organ and human voice.

This is where Antonella's meticulous and careful research began, leading her to choose both pieces she had already tackled in the past in different guises, such as Gounod's Ave Maria and Frank's Panis Angelicus, and to encounter music she had never heard before, such as Franz Biebl's Ave Maria and Mark Thomas's Ave Maris Stella, both 20th century composers.

De Andrè’s Ave Maria could not be missed, as well as a tribute to the tradition of popular music with O Sanctissima and the traditional Sardinian song Deus ti salvet Maria. Another original proposal is the Kyrie and the Gloria from the Missa Criolla by Ariel Ramirez with a new arrangement for organ and voice by M° Caporali.

musical accompaniment
Roberto Olzer, piano and liturgical organ
Roberto Colombo, vocoder and synth bass

The name of Antonella Ruggiero, one of the most versatile voices on the Italian scene, has spanned the last twenty-five years of Italian music; with her songs she has narrated and followed in parallel the evolution and trajectory of customs and tastes of the general public. First with Matia Bazar and then, from the nineties, with a solo career, as varied as it was successful, her ability as an interpreter, intertwined with a natural curiosity, with the desire to range beyond the boundaries of traditional formulas and languages, has been able to touch fields and points that are virtually very distant from each other.

These different experiences, which have matured over the years, are now proposed by Antonella in a concert that touches on all her greatest hits from “Vacanze romane” to the most recent “Echi d’infinito”, thus interpreting in a completely new way songs that have made the history of Italian pop music. But Antonella Ruggiero’s career has not stopped at pop: in recent years she has in fact crossed music linked to Western, Indian and African religious culture to then push into the atmospheres of Broadway, Portuguese fado, singer-songwriter music and Italy between the two wars.

Pop, therefore, but also sacred music and world music in this recital that also reaches the songs of some famous Italian singer-songwriters, always discovering new ways of arrangement and interpretation. Accompanying Antonella on this journey are Roberto Olzer, on piano and liturgical organ and Roberto Colombo, vocoder and bass synth.

On the occasion of her participation in the 2007 Sanremo Italian Song Festival with the song “Canzone fra le guerre”, Antonella Ruggiero released her new album “Souvenir d’Italie”, the result of a project with which the Genoese singer had the opportunity to reinterpret in concert, during the summer of 2006, some of the most significant songs composed between 1915 and 1945.

Antonella Ruggiero's work was aimed at recovering and enhancing the jazz key of the songs, with the musical direction of Renzo Ruggieri on the accordion.

The concert includes the performance of songs from Antonella Ruggiero's repertoire, from the 70s to today.

The proposed musical reinterpretation, with the accompaniment of Renzo Ruggieri on the accordion, is certainly innovative and full of charm.