20/10/2024
Impressions of the festival of free improvised and creative music 'Impronedjeljak / Impromonday IV' by Italian soprano sax player, improviser and composer Gianni Mimmo:
IMPRONEDJELJAK / IMPROMONDAY FESTIVAL IV
Sept 30 - Oct 02, 2024, held in the Močvara club in Zagreb
www.art-organisation-cargo.hr/impromonday-festival-2024
Nicely represented by Nikola Vincelj's graphics in a large poster that hung on the stage of the Močvara club in Zagreb, the fourth edition of ‘Impronedjeljak / Impromonday’ festival (in which I had the opportunity to participate in a duo with the brilliant pianist Nicola Guazzaloca thanks to the invitation of its artistic director Damir P. Kafka) unraveled for the duration of three intense days a series of fruitful intersections, inter-generational solicitations and attentive and mutual listening among musicians of the huge international free improvisation scene.
A festival is always an opportunity to feel the pulse of the creative energy in circulation, and perhaps in such complex historical moments it offers an extra opportunity to understand the way in which an artist, a musician finds a synthesis, a mode of communication that in these times constitutes an expressive sublimation, but it often happens that the programming, the very “frame” of a festival becomes more important than what is represented there.
This is not the case with this festival, which, thanks to the passionate effort of Damir Kafka and the attention of his collaborators, has kept the concrete focus on the quality and social impact of creative production.
Starting with the courageous programming that crossed a very wide spectrum of possible musical declinations: different historical derivations, important names belonging to different generations, lyricism and minimalism, different attitudes and energies, 'Impormonday' was able to weave an important relational possibility, made of mutual respect and attention thanks to the co-presence of different musical syntaxes. A festival with a simple and direct breath, an open and non-passive audience armed with curiosity and communicative hunger.
In addition to the presence of solid projects that have been active for a long time, the formula of ‘Impromonday’ festival includes an intersectional possibility, a recombination between elements different in grammar, style, and age. This is an interesting and fruitful formula, concretely aimed at creating “community” in a time when this word is given only virtual possibilities.
I
n morning conversations with Phil Wachsmann, probably the oldest of the festival participants, this idea of belonging, an important continuity in times of ephemeral fragments, often emerged in his words. Personally, I had the opportunity to listen to longtime collaborators and younger musicians with very different backgrounds and to reflect with them on the possible declinations of our art making.
Festival ‘Impromonday’ I believe represents a living and necessary node in the pulsating web of creativity, its cipher is honest and curious and retains a freshness not so common nowadays.
- Gianni Mimmo,
Oct 13, 2024
https://www.giannimimmo.com/en/home
