francesca gaza.
Francesca Gaza (1995) is an Italian/German singer, composer and arranger with romanian roots currently living in Basel, Switzerland.
As a bandleader, sidewoman and arranger she is working extensively in jazz-, antique-, pop, contemporary-classical and experimental music.
Her most recent project Kugelförmigkeit, written during last year’s pandemic, is a ten-piece ensemble revealing a sympathetic connection between seemingly disparate principles, fusing instruments from Jazz, Renaissance, Baroque and Pop into a musical language of its own.
The unusual configuration of instruments is woven into an imaginary spherical space where the proximity of present, past and future is explored and suspended.
From influences of T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets to Carlo Gesualdo’s Miserere Melody and 14th century Orlando Di Lasso Bicinium structures, the compositions establish a particular relationship to each other, a sort of counterpoint between a modernist unease arising from the consciousness of the passage of time, and a romantic yearning for the comfort that can be found in unity and stasis. Her Album with this project will be released in May 2021 on Whales Records.
She was awarded the National Italian Composition Prize in 2017, the 1st prize of the Jazzalguer Festival lead by Paolo Fresu in 2018, the Umbria Jazz Competition Prize and a Berklee College of Music Summer Program Scholarhsip in 2013.
Francesca has graduated from the M.A. in Composition, Performance and production at he Jazzcampus Basel with a Minor in the Antique Music department of Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. She finished her Bachelor of Arts in Jazz Singing in 2017 at the Siena Jazz University in Italy with magna cum laude and has a classically trained background in Piano. Currently, she is involved in her post-graduate studies in composition, sound-design and early music.
Francesca will be one of the composers featured in the project Vicentino21 Symposium happening next October in Switzerland.
Video by Meghan Cheng
Voice and Composition : Francesca Gaza
Baroque Flute : Eleonora Biscevic
Bass Clarinet : Kira Linn
Trombone : Adrian King
Viola da Gamba : Giulio Tanasini
Theorbo : Ignacio Laguna
Guitar : Martín Theurillat
Harpsichord and Piano : Iannis Obiols
Double Bass: Nadav Erlich
Drums : Mattia Galeotti
Recorded, mixed and produced by Daniel Somaroo
Mastered by Alexander Vatagin
Album artwork by Vieri Cervelli Montel