The Italian reed and brass quintet was formed in 2021 to bridge contemporary, written, and improvised music. Its musicians – clarinetist Clarissa Durizzotto, flutist Paolo Pascolo, trumpeter Gabriele Cancelli, trombonist and French horn player Mirko Cisilino and tubaist Martin O’Loughlin are active in local bands in North-East Italy. Nuageux is the debut album of this acoustic quintet and was recorded at DobiaLab Cultural Center in Dobia in 2023.
Gertrude insists on an all-acoustic setup that makes its music perfect for site-specific performances and distinct, natural locations. The quintet’s music relies on thoughtful, complex individual compositions – like Cancelli’s opening, the choral “Ceneri” and the drone-like title piece, O’Loughlin’s dramatic “CloudO”, and Cisilino’s two-part, playful, and waltz-like “Sonno”. These compositions enjoy the rich, orchestral spectrum of the quintet and suggest refined and precise arrangements.
The other pieces are collective, more urgent and adventurous, instant compositions like “Cielo”, “Ovi” and the wildest “Temporale”, that owe much to the immediate, subversive appeal of folk music, and in the case of “Pika” even sum the whole musical mayhem in only seven seconds. These improvised pieces use the musicians’ strong-minded voices, as well as their extended breathing techniques to expand the quintet’s sound, and eventually form a balanced, colorful musical journey that just begins to explore the potential of Gertrude.
Clarissa Durizzotto (clarinet); Paolo Pascolo (flutes); Gabriele Cancelli (trumpet); Mirko Cisilino (trombone, french horn); Martin O’Loughlin (tuba).
