Concert – Dimitri Grechi Espinoza

The Spiritual Meaning of Sound

For this occasion, using the beautiful reverberation of the Church of S.Caterina, pieces from the repertoire of some of the traditional musical cultures that he has had the chance to directly get to know will be played, such as the Tuareg, Gnawa, and Mali cultures, as well as pieces inspired by the folklore of other musical traditions.

With “The Spiritual Meaning of Sound” he speaks to those who, through listening, are able to experience an inner resonance and thanks to this inner resonance can become aware of the quality (sonic) that constitutes our deepest essence.

OREB, the title of Dimitri Grechi Espinoza’s latest project, is another name to indicate Mount Sinai, where Moses met God “face to face” in a dialogue that will become incandescent matter for all humanity in the Ten Commandments of the Teaching. But Oreb is also the mountain on which the prophet Elijah, tired and disgusted by having killed too much, meets the silent voice of God. The Lord was not in the wind, not in the earthquake, not in the fire; but in a “voice of suspended silence”, barely perceptible to the hearing. It is this quality of silence that is expressed in Dimitri Grechi Espinoza’s Sax solo: a silent space that must be created within oneself before speaking to the Other, before speaking to others.

Gabriella Caramore – host of “Uomini e Profeti” Rai Radio3

DIMITRI GRECHI ESPINOZA was born in Moscow in 1965, attended Jazz Mobile in New York and completed high-level professional courses at Siena jazz with P. Tonolo. In 2000 he founded the musical research group Dinamitri Jazz Folklore which in 2014 obtained 2nd place in the Musica Jazz magazine ranking as the best Italian group. In August 2001 he was invited to perform at the Pan-African festival in Brazzaville (Congo). From March 2002 to 2003 he collaborated with Goma Parfait Ludovic, director of the Congolese company Yela wa, in research on the tradition of African healing music with seminars and performances. Since 2004 he has been mainly active in two directions: applying the results of research on traditional cultures to the music of the group Dinamitri Jazz Folklore, and to the solo concert “Oreb/The Spiritual Meaning of Sound”, as well as teaching activities. In 2011 he participated in the “Fesival Au Desert” in Mali, and from 2012 to 2014 he directed the project “Azalai-Caravan musicale” with which he performed at some of the largest European festivals.

Oreb has been performed in some of the most prestigious Italian venues, including:

• Pantheon (Rome), Baptistery S.Giovanni (Pisa), St.Giles Cathedral (Edinburgh), Pinacoteca di Brera (Milan), Chiesa della Grande Madre (Turin), Basilica S.Gaudenzio (Novara)
• Cappella Pazzi (Florence), Planetary (Milan), Baptistery S.Giovanni (Volterra), Uffizi Gallery (Florence), Basilica S.Miniato (Florence), Basilica S.Vitale (Ravenna)
• Cisterna Mirabilis (Naples), Duomo Pozzuoli (Naples), Rosazzo Abbey (Udine), Palazzo Liviano (Padua), Basilica S.Maria delle Grazie (Milan).