Concerts by Stefano Vestrini, St Louis Institute, Rome 

Wednesday, 13 November 12 p.m. room 312

Rhythm Archetypes

A musical workshop dedicated to the basic building blocks of rhythm, derived from Afrocentric cultures. Stefano will display and analyse these building blocks, making the students hear them in different cultural contexts and highlight their musical value. Understanding these common patterns can dramatically improve skills like memorizing music, expression, improvising and playing with musicians of different stylistic backgrounds. This is a talk that promotes a unifying and historically continuous vision of music so, musicians playing any instrument are welcome, the musical concepts we will discuss are beyond the means to play them.

Friday, 15 November 12 p.m. room 215

Afrocuban treasures

Cuba is an outstanding source of ancient folklore coming from Africa combined with European melody and harmonic forms. Its rhythmic aesthetic relies on ancient aulic form of drums expression, which can be deceiving for the untrained ear. Liturgic and Folkloric genres, where the aforementioned aesthetics are used, are still very much alive and continue to influence and fuel all Latin styles like Salsa, Son, Mambo, Timba and Chachacha. The goal of the talk is to share some of these Cuban musical treasures hopefully inspiring a better understanding of the music.

Stefano Vestrini - bio

PERCUSSION

Stefano Vestrini’s musical training took place between Saint Louis College of Music in Rome, with drum masters, Daniele Chiantese, Claudio Mastracci, Davide Piscopo and Giovanni Imparato.Also in 2016 and 2018, he continued his training in Rio de Janeiro where he studied drums with Kiko Freitas, pandeiro with Clarice Magalhães, batucada with Wagner Pereira, Timbal and Alfaia with Alexandre Garnizé, Candomblé and Afro-Brazilian religion rhythms with Douglas de Logun Edé.In 2019 he continued his musical research in Havana with maestro Irian Lopez Rodriguez regarding Afro-Cuban liturgical music.In 2018, he paraded at the Sambodromo in Rio de Janeiro’s carnival music competition with the “Inocentes de Belford Roxo” Samba School.He was part of the historic “Cacique de Ramos” Samba School, with which he played for two carnival editions (2017 and 2018) and at the school’s 57th year celebration concert.He also taught a master class at the Conservatorium Maastricht on Brazilian percussion in 2017.In conclusion in Holland he was leader of the Latin American music group “Buena Onda” with which he opened Laura Mvula’s concert in the important venue of “Theater aan het Vrijthof.”