On Saturday, July 11, at 5:00 p.m. in the “Gavazzeni” Foyer of the Donizetti Theater, the fifth edition of *Il Centro della Musica*—a festival organized by the Donizetti Theater Foundation in collaboration with the Department of Social Policies of the City of Bergamo—will come to a close. The concert’s guests will include Gianluigi Trovesi, the most internationally renowned of Bergamo’s jazz musicians; the Gruppo Fiati Musica Aperta (Giovanni Perico on flute, Giuseppe Cattaneo on English horn, Roberto Bergamelli on bass clarinet, Ugo Gelmi on bassoon, and Roger Rota on bassoon and alto saxophone), and cellist Marco Remondini, a regular collaborator of the Nembro-based musician.

The concert is titled Playing with Notes and is based on an idea by Pieralberto Cattaneo, director of the Gruppo Fiati Musica Aperta, who conceived it as an encounter between music and words: on one hand, there is a text written by Marco Buscarino; on the other, music composed by Pieralberto Cattaneo himself—pieces that, at first glance, appear complete but are deliberately left unfinished, lacking a final touch. All of this is done in the spirit of curiosity and play, as if someone, picking up the lost sheets of paper, were to attune themselves to the text and try to complete it by adapting their own imagination to what they’ve found, leading to outcomes that are unpredictable each time. In this way, spaces for improvisation are opened up: the compositions under scrutiny draw inspiration from musical situations of the past—Renaissance villanelles, Gesualdo’s madrigals, and Puccini’s arias. The result resembles a game of mirrors—multiplied and diffused.

Pieralberto Cattaneo recounts: “Gianluigi Trovesi and I share the same musical roots—the rooms on Via Arena, where the Conservatory was located (which is what we called it even before it officially bore that name)—and we were both aware of the value of the education provided there. Then each of us followed our own inclinations, seeking out the paths that suited us best. The idea of coming together again on the same musical path is a recent one: ‘Let’s see what happens,’ we said to each other, because the challenge—difficult but very stimulating—was to combine rigorous composition with the freedom of improvisation. It’s also worth noting that all the pieces in the new project draw inspiration from composers of the past: a form of reinterpretation that, over the years, both Gianluigi and I have carried out in many different ways.”