Giovanni Sollima

Giovanni Sollima is an Italian composer and cellist. He was born into a family of musicians and studied cello with Giovanni Perriera and composition with his father, Eliodoro Sollima, at the Conservatorio di Palermo, where he graduated with highest honors. He later studied with Antonio Janigro and Milko Kelemen at the Musikhochschule Stuttgart and at the Universität Mozarteum Salzburg.
As a composer, Sollima's influences are wide ranging, taking in jazz and rock, as well as various ethnic traditions from the Mediterranean area. Sollima's music is influenced by minimalism, with his compositions often featuring modal melodies and repetitive structures. Because his works are characterized by a more diverse and eclectic approach to material than the early American minimalist composers, the American critic Kyle Gann has called Sollima a postminimalist composer.
Sollima teaches at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome and plays a cello by Francesco Ruggieri. He has collaborated with the American poet and musician Patti Smith, appearing on her records and performing with her in concert. He also collaborates with the Silk Road Project.

Music for chamber ensembles

Musica per sonar a più stromenti dialogando fra antica et moderna
Notturno
Maithuna
Orgy
Tantra
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower by Dylan Thomas
La luna
Variazioni su un plastico
4 works by Andy Warhol
6 caprices
Flowers
Primo frammento da "Empedocles", text by Michele Perriera
Siciliana con variazione
E gli alberi germinarono, e gli uomini e le donne...
In B
Match Suite
Segno in memory of the victims of the Capaci massacre
Africa, quintet for 2 violins, viola and 2 cellos
Anno uno in memory of the victims of the via D'Amelio massacre
Violoncelles, vibrez! version for 6 cellos
Heimat-terra
The Songlines
Angeli nel vulcano
A gift
Spasimo
Sento il canto in curva
Il Tracciato di Marta
Voyage
John Africa
Studio per Aquilastro
Chi è
Lam
Yafù
Aquilarco, text by Christopher Knowles
Lamentatio
Pasolini fragments
Reperto n. 12 from a fragment by Schubert
S'ota love dance
A view from the bottom, text by Mumia Abu Jamal
Concerto rotondo
I canti
The meetings of the waters
Millennium Bug
Intersong I
Subsongs
L'interpretazione dei sogni
Leonardo's ornithoptherus
Alone
Hell
Contrafactus
Il Tracciato
Viaggio in Italia, texts by Michelangelo Buonarroti, Giordano Bruno and Francesco Borromini
Intersong II
J. Beuys Song
Vram, text by Alessandro Baricco
Pillole
Bêri
Terra Aria from "B song"
Terra Danza from "B song"
Cello Tree from "B song"
''Il bell'Antonio, Tema III''

Concerto grosso
String concerto No. 1
String concerto No. 1
Raccapriccio
Le Paradis Submergé
Two Nocturnes
Musivum
Le notti bianche
The Columbus Egg
In B, version for Jazz Band
Cello Concerto
Africa
Agnus Dei
Violoncelles, vibrez!
Sinfonia in luoghi aperti
MW
Angeli
Adagio Cartolina
Aria in rosso
Lam & Dan
All the W
Guitar chemistry
Alleluja
Casanova
Canti rocciosi, with texts by Dino Buzzati, Dante Alighieri, Ernest Hemingway and 'street rhymes' in Sicilian, Italian and Ladin
Contrafactus
''Tempeste e ritratti''

Notti di Grazia - Melodramma in un atto, libretto by Dario Oliveri
Mittersill 101 variazioni sul caso Anton Webern - Video opera, text by Dario Oliveri, after Goethe
Cenerentola Azzurro - Text by Dario Oliveri
Casanova - Choreography by Karole Armitage
Matteo Ricci — Li Madou - Melologue, text by Filippo Mignini
J. Beuys song - Choreography by Carolyn Carlson
Ellis Island - Opera in 2 acts, libretto by Roberto Alajmo

On 9 May 2007 Lasse Gjertsen released a two-part music video for two of Giovanni Sollima's pieces:
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