../ aiò nenè
I come from the North but I'm from the South…that’s how I feel. Although I was born in the Alps (a Slovenian-speaking NortheRn mother and a SoutheRn father) I am Mediterranean. I created this project drawing an inspiration from Italian traditions and by also following the influence of jazz, pop, opera and world wide music. Music is something live and continuously changing. Music is able to go beyond every cultural and linguiStic border drawing invisible lines between North and South, East and West; it has the power to reach out to every human being promoting peace.
Press
"Luisa Cottifogli came on with the most "way out" performance, stretching her voice to unimaginable limits "Roopesh Raj, Pune Times of India
"Luisa Cottifogli and Band came on with a performance you can define with a single word: Wow!!" Manfred Horak, Jazzzeit, Vienna www.jazzzeit.at
"The various suggestions have been mixed and transfigured both to a unitary style and coherence of rhythms and timbres. Cottifogli, with a well supporting backing band, demonstrated that she has a talented voice with a wide range of expressions based on a solid knowledge of differing folk cultures" Libero Farnè, MusicaJazz
"The band, particularly Luisa, pushed those carefully defined, lovingly preserved, pickled and zealously guarded boundaries between jazz, folk, rock, pop, fusion. Their performance cut across barriers with the simplicity of its universal appeal… Most of all, every bit of emotion that she sang of reached the audience, in spite of her singing in a language most of us did not understand" Pune Times of India
"Cottifogli's voice never lost its astonishing clarity and precision while dropping from highs that made you fear that the glass in your hand would burst to a copy of Louis Armstrong's voice" Dennis Stute, The Sunday Pioneer
"Travel seems to be ... Luisa Cottifogli's native realm...An exciting show, expecially with the dialogue between the vocalist and the projected video images. Her music is deep and refined...and powerful. " Messaggero Veneto
“The Italiano Luisa Cottifogli's vocalisation spanned all genres of music and was worth writing home about. She blended languages with tunes and styles from the world over and the result was splendid…the performance was avant-garde to put it in a nutshell ” Musicurry, Indian on-line magazine, www.musicurry.com
“… a remarkable CD from an Italian singer who is certain to make waves in the coming years. Luisa Cottifogli has a powerful, well-trained voice and an ear for the vocal music not only of her native Italy but also from around the world… (She) has a colorful voice, trained in opera and early music, but equally at home with the open and aggressive folk style… A great singer needs a great band, and Cottifogli has assembled one to reckon with…Together they create a swirl of music that is stylistically unclassifiable; alternately lush, madcap or devotional; concurrently jazz, folk and avant garde…Cottifogli's songs are carefully constructed from a world of elements, yet they are all of a piece, a Mediterranean exploration that never settles for the obvious…she is an urban, modern musician whose creative heart is sitting by the sea, looking out on a world of ideas, always anticipating one more journey east, west or south.”
Cliff Furnald, RootsWorld USA on-line magazine, www.rootsworld.com
“Luisa Cottifogli is a colourful Italian vocalist who has caught well deserved attention for her experimental curiousity...This is a neatly made production in which the voice takes the listener to several genres and at the same time opens up windows to other continents...Styles are effectively shifting; meditative parts suddenly lead to small explosions, coloured by brave vocal technique.The step to improvisations is never far… Thrilling provocations!” Gert-Ove Fridlung, Hallandsposten , Svezia
“Here is a jewel, an object wrought by a refined and curious craftsman who is never satisfied with his discoveries, his own style and technique, always trying to go beyond the goal he only just reached. The guiding thread is Luisa Cottifogli’s voice, which we could also appreciate on stage...in this cd she follows cultured routes, which are at the antipodes of banality. Various atmospheres, from the vocal acrobatics in “Un’italiana a Bombay”(an Italian in Bombay) to the sumptuous lamentation of “Aiò Nenè”, one of the most touching lullabies I’ve ever heard; from “Alamò”, based on a Sicilian tuna-fishermen song, to “Grano” (wheat) based on a traditional tune coming from Abruzzo; from “Guerra” (war), a minimalist style hymn against every war and futile motivation which pushes men to fight one each other, a yell against the hunger for power, to “Flauti” (flutes), in which the voice is used as a flexible and multiple musical instrument. In conclusion we are in the presence of a cd which leaves a clear sign and you won’t forget it, among lots of products which even if they are fair they flow away like water, living a barely perceptible taste”. Gian Luca Barbieri, La Cronaca di Cremona