The ice violin and the decade that started in the name of the color white

“Hello fellow humans!” This is the greeting with which I usually start the Space Violin Radio Show (NB: a new episode will be posted on my channels on Friday 17^th of January 2020) and today I’m using this greeting to tell you about the most “spatial” adventure that has happened to me on earth so far, and to boot, in my “normal” vest of violinist Andrea Casta and not in that of my alter ego Commander AJ, who is more used to the extreme scenarios of The Space Violin Project.

Those who follow me on social media have already had the opportunity to see the concert at the Eq Ice Dome, the ice theater at 2600 meters, on the slopes of the Presena Glacier, in the Ponte di Legno – Tonale ski area, located in the Central Italian Alps.

For those who haven’t seen it yet, the quickest way to understand what happened is to watch this segment by TG1, the national news broadcast of the Italian state TV, one of the most important and followed networks (for my American friends, it’s a bit as if the segment had aired on FOX NEWS)

https://www.facebook.com/48461848087/posts/10157910554493088/

Again, for my American friends, you should know that the creator of this project is Tim Linhart, an artist from New Mexico who discovered quite early that ice would be his mission.

After many years spent traveling around the world and the search for a suitable place in the Alps, fate wanted him to “land” right on the mountains that I have frequented the most in my life.

Up until the age of 20 I really spent a lot more time on the snow and upland rather than in the city, and from the moment I started my career as a professional musician the time available to me to take refuge upland has become scarcer.

Thanks to this concert, between preparation and rehearsals, the videos I shot before and other little “excuses”, I finally managed to reconnect with those rocky and snowy peaks. Each time I rediscover myself emotionally connected to those mountains, to which I recognize a great inspiration, same as when I was a child.

Now I would like to tell you about a musical challenge that is truly at the limit: ice in your hands that proves to be ever more alive, you feel its fragility and passing the bow on the strings ever so slowly produces a sound that evolves with a speed I’ve never felt with any other instrument; it’s really difficult to maintain it in tune and therefore the intonation, but on the first day I “tamed” that violin, playing it for 2 hours in the empty igloo and enjoying sounds that I’d never heard before. During the concert, the 310 people sitting in the “ice cathedral” quickly raised the temperature: that ice started to drip, it became indomitable, leaving me to play it with much difficulty. But the energy of the mountain audience and the magical atmosphere it produced allowed me and the other musicians to complete a concert that we will remember forever, between the applauses, made unique by the sound of the gloves, and a final embrace between myself and Tim, who followed me with enthusiasm right up to the last note, until the violin, worn out, finally broke. Then, we returned to earth from the ice kingdom.

See you back soon Ice Music!

Photo by Mauro Mariotti www.mauromariotti.it