Les Trois Lézards
PRESENTATION
Les Trois Lézards (or the three lizards) play the folk music of a faraway land, the land of Tadjiguinie: a hypoetic state founded by the Troublamours* and the homeland of the 'tarantella-gitano-guinguette' style, on the imaginary borders of France, Italy and the Balkans. Their music, that they also like to call "sweet violence", oscillates between languidly poetic atmospheres and definitely hypnotic moments of trance.
How to create a bridge between a waltz and techno?... ... Bienvenus en Tadjiguinie!
*Les Troublamours, a group born in southwestern France (Tarbes) at the end of the twentieth century.
VIDEO
On our youtube channel you can find the short "Bienvenus en Tadjiguinie" (welcome to Tadjiguinie) produced by Ipe Ipe music with the support of Ibili within "Apulia Sounds 2020/2021" regional aid.
Released by Marco Rossi and Mad Dog Studio, illustrated by Emmanuel Ferrari and spiced with the lizardous music! Have a nice watch!
THE MUSICIANS
ROBERTO CHIGA
Tambourine
Percussionist, enthusiast and expert of the Salento tambourine tamburello, in particular of the most archaic ways and techniques that distinguish this instrument, which he learned and assimilated through his long-time experience and practice with traditional singers and instrumentalists such as Pino Zimba and Uccio Aloisi, as well as with maestros Pierangelo Colucci and Alfio Antico.
This led him naturally to discover his own technique that allows him to perform both traditional and popular music, also bringing him to experimentation and merging of genres, such as, for example, the collaboration with DJ Gruff, the pioneer of scratch and Hip Hop in Italy.
Furthermore, through the studies of tambourine, he approached frame drums of the Mediterranean basin, deepening his knowledge with great percussionists such as Zohar Fresco.
His experience led him to be present in various musical scenes ranging from traditional and baroque music to Arabic flamenco, to collaborations with singer-songwriters and even to contemporary music. Together with Andrea Piccioni, Vincenzo Gagliani and Gian Michele Montanaro he founded a percussion ensemble called Tamburello Cafè. He is currently working with them on bringing tambourine's status as an instrument to a higher and more important level.
He has collaborated with Italian and international artists and participates in a large number of International Festivals. He is also currently present in various musical formations as well as in various discographic works in Salento and outside.
Since 2015 he has been a tambourine player in the Taranta
Night Orchestra. Currently he is also collaborating with Salentrio, Les Trois
Lézards and Koinè
GIOVANNI CHIRICO
Baritone saxophone
At the age of 13 he discovered the saxophone in his hometown marching band. Two years later he met his very first music teacher, Gabriele Semplicino, who prepared him for the admission test at the conservatory of Monopoli.
During the study years at the conservatory he attended masterclasses with several eminent musicians such as Juan Jimènez Alba, Marco Gerboni, Javier Girotto and in 2010 he participated in the Umbria Jazz masterclasses in Perugia.
In 2012 he got his bachelor degree with the best grades, carrying on jazz studies under the guidance of Roberto Ottaviano. He approached folk music, while studying new instruments such as zuffolo, shawm, flutes and frame drums. In the meanwhile he continued a detailed study of jazz with the maestros Enrico Rava, Bob Stoloff, Marshall Allen, Alexander Hawkins, Andrea Centazzo and Massimo de Mattia.In 2016 he was recognized as one of the best students of Bari Conservatory and consequently involved in a tour with the trumpet player Giovanni Falzone, that concluded with the recording of a final concert at Casa del Jazz in Rome.
In March 2016 he graduated with honours in jazz saxophone at the Bari conservatory. For two years in a row he won the contest Locomotive Giovani and during the last of these two years he attended master classes in the Nuoro Jazz Festival, studying productively with Joe Lovano, Emanuele Cisi, Bebo Ferra, Fulvio Sigurtà, Dado Moroni, Roberto Cipelli, Stefano Bagnoli, Paolino della Porta and many others.
Currently he is active in various bands (Bandadriatica, Giro di Banda, Alex Band, Les Trois Lézards, etc) with whom he is playing all over Italy, the repertoire ranging from jazz to world music.
Recently he also participated in a tour in Provence in the framework of the artist residency "Festival d'Aix-en Provence", representing Italy among musicians from all over the Mediterrean.
Last but not least his first solo artist's CD "Bases" was released in November 2019.
GIORGIO DISTANTE
Tuba / trumpet
Giorgio Distante was born in 1980 in Cisternino. At five he begans to play the clarinet and the piano, and at ten the trumpet.
He graduated in trumpet in 1998 at the Monopoli Conservatory and began to play professionally starting from 1997.
In 2000 he obtained a scholarship from Berklee College of Music in Boston (MA) and lived in Boston from 2001 to 2004, attending classes in improvisation, arrangement and composition.
In 2009 he graduated with best grades in Electronic Music at the Perugia Conservatory under the guidance of Maestro Luigi Ceccarelli. He wrote his own software to treat the trumpet sound differently and to develop it in solo, duo and trio projects, exploring the possibilities of new audio and video technologies applied to acoustic instruments.
In 2013 he won the contest A. R. T. MEDIMEX2013 organized by Arci ReAL and ARCI Puglia in collaboration with Puglia Sounds.
Since 2015 he has also been working on an electroacoustic instrument of his own conception and design: a hybrid, synthesis between electronics and trumpet. HY E.T. (Hybrid Electroacoustic Trumpet) which was born in his mind already in 2012.
In 2018 his new vinyl album MenoMondoPossibile was released, played almost entirely with HY E.T.
EMMANUEL FERRARI
Accordion
He graduated in History in 1995 from the University of Toulouse Le Mirail.
After having tried (unsuccessfully) to play the piano, the clarinet and the electric guitar, in 1997 an old swiss diatonic accordion fell into his arms (on the contrary) and he fell in love with it. He started to play with Les Troublamours, a young group just founded by his brother, Simon Ferrari.
In 1998 he participated in a musical workshop with a master and poet of the French accordion, Marc Perrone: a great example of musicality and humanity and a role model for Emmanuel.
In 1999, still self-taught, he began to play the accordion, and with Les Troublamours. Passionate about tarantella, he returned to South Italy.
This period witnessed the birth of Tadjiguinie, the hypoetic homeland of the Troublamours, and the homeland of the Tarantella-Gitano-Guinguette musical style.
From 1999 to 2016 Emmanuel toured France, Italy and Europe with Les Troublamours, playing in almost a thousand concerts with them.
Four discs were released with a publisher in Salento, Anima Mundi (La ballade de Ninour 2003, Air Tadjiguin 2005, Ama acqua 2007, Hibou du monde 2010).
He published an illustrated book in 2018, again with Anima Mundi, "Parole a fumetti".
He has collaborated with various folk music groups in Salento and created the groups "Accordéon et Fistons" (with his sons, mixing traditional compositions and arias from all over the Europe), "Les oiseaux de passage" to bring Georges Brassens, Serge Gainsbourg, Edith Piaf, Claude Nougaro (and many others) to the shores of the Mediterranean and "Les Trois Lézards" with the intent to revive the musical tradition of Tadjiguinie.
The latest additions to the list of groups he has co-created are the band Fanfare Tadjiguine (music of Tadjiguinie brought to people with the energy of a brass-band) and the trio Kuukaru (music from Estonia, Sweden and Eastern Europe).
