by Peter King Jin Hai Ping 金海平
金海平 Peter: Why do you have Aida Duo as name of your group?
Giorgia: Many people think our name is AiDA DUO written as 2 words, but it is actually one word AiDADUO: a duo which puts synergically both talents and ideas in the achievement of the same goal: to reach a deeper level of consciousness through music. AiDA is the title of a famous Italian opera by Giuseppe Verdi. Just like the main characters, AiDA and Radames, decide to leave their different paths and backgrounds behind and start a new life following their dreams, similarly Stefano and I, about 12 years ago, decided to leave our comfortable life as teachers and performers and begin a totally new experience abroad.
Stefano: Up untill 12 years ago, Giorgia and I were living in Italy, performing as a duo in prestigious festivals, mainly in cathedrals and theaters all over Europe, teaching music and conducting choirs. Then one day, in 2008, we decided it was time for us to leave the comfort zone. We first left for the United States without a contact, but with the idea of exploring the possibilities.
As soon as we started sharing our new Modular projects in Miami Florida, amazing opportunities came out, including the organization of a big ModulArt Festival. From that experience, many other challenging projects saw the light. In fact, a few years later we were invited as artists in residence at the West Georgia University in Carrollton, Georgia. The experience gave birth to a very large number of new ModulArt projects and performances. After the American dream, in 2012, we left for Asia and with great satisfaction, new fascinating and unexpected doors for our research and performances opened up. South Korea, China and Japan became our artistic residency for the following 6 years and brought us many fulfilling achievements.
金海平 Peter: How did you meet each other?
Giorgia: We met about 17 years ago in 2003, during the rehearsals of the Opera La Traviata. I was one of the opera soloists, while Stefano was the conductor. Actually, we both were there by total coincidence; I was still studying at the Conservatory of music, when my vocal coach called me and asked me to substitute a sick collegue at the very last minute.... Stefano: I have always been a serious pipe organ concert player, with a particular dislike for singers, especially loud opera singers:):) but I decided to accept the challenge and conduct the opera .....neither one of us should have been there!!🤣.
Giorgia :Now I would like to share a secret with you! Guess what? After 17 years Stefano is still performing Opera Arias with me..... guess who is the leader in the team?😉
金海平 Peter: When did you guys start your career as performers?
Stefano: I began performing in a pop/rock band as a teenager, but in the meantime I was seriously studying classical music. I gave my first classical pipe
organ concert as a soloist at the age of 18.
Giorgia: I started performing with a pop vocal quartet at the age of 13.
Back then I was also composing my first own pop songs.
My first opera aria concert was around the age of 20.
You are not supposed to sing opera too early..... the voice is not completely mature yet.
金海平 Peter: What inspires you when you are trying to compose a new song?
Stefano: there is a big difference between composing classical music and composing just a song. A song is a lightning of emotions
that can be inspired by every moment of everyday life. You don’t have to look for inspiration but you have to be open to let your soul be invaded with the beauty of the moment. To compose classical music is indeed totally different. You need to start balancing and organizing every sound to shape a new idea through music, which usually is long enough to bring the audience in a different world.
Every single phrase becomes a stone of the new musical building of sound.
Giorgia: as a linguist and lyricist, I mainly compose the lyrics of a song. For me whether is a classical piece or a popular song, I need time to let the right words come to me rather than the opposite. Time is what I call inspiration😁!
Giorgia and Stefano:....more into details: The inspiration is usually the first idea that intuitively reaches the right side of the brain, it is exciting and thrilling, an humongous amount of ideas overwhelms you; that's why it is important to give it time to mature and, as we say, pass from the instinctive, very enthusiastic right side to the left part of the brain, where the information is rationally organized and structured.
金海平 Peter: How do you adjust your show to accommodate different audience?
Giorgia: This is a very interesting question! I think two are the ingredients which make our performances versatile and adaptable to the audience we have in front: Irony and the passion for learning a new culture and
language. If I amuse myself while I am creating it and doing it, I know I am going in the direction I am looking for.
First of all, to deliver my sense of humour, I necessarily need to go deep inside the culture, the habits and traditions of the audience I am addressing my show to. I have to know proverbs, expressions, jokes that are popular in that culture.... evidently knowing the language is a fundamental factor. And here you have the second of all! I always accept the challenge of learning the language of my audience. If you can talk to them and make them laugh in an unexpected way, you are able to take them one by one on stage with you! The last language I have packed in my suitcase is by far the one which is still filling me with satisfaction the most: chinese!
Stefano: starting my career with a strong and clear classical direction, for years I have been performing lots of very serious music, in serious venues always surrounded by too serious people. Only later on, I discovered that in order to express the real intention of the composers, I needed to make that kind of music seem lighter, fun and funny at times. Surprise myself first to surprise and tease the audience the entire evening. You make them feel part of the family this way. Imagine chinese audience reaction when with my elegant tuxedo and a very serious look I tell them: ”My name is Stefano, but you can call me 马马虎虎！”
金海平 Peter: How long does it take for you to prepare a new piece of music? Giorgia: A Modular performance, as we have conceived it, is based on a cocktail of different music pieces joined together. We cannot talk of a mix because each individual piece always keeps its identity and never get mixed up with the other. The etymology of the word “to compose” means to put together....... so it is in the word itself the meaning of something not new, but something we have already heard somewhere else and from somebody else. So basically when we compose we are putting our ideas together with already heard, pre-existing music. In our performance every genre is welcome: The more hazardous and distant the combination, the most intriguing the results ! Lately we have been performing for chinese audience in particular, and we were amazed by the flexibility and perfect resonance that chinese songs can have with our repertoire of classical and operatic arias.
AiDADUO performing in Polynesia for chinese crowd
So the timing is basically hidden in finding the right combination of music together with the story we are telling through music.
金海平 Peter: I would say music takes you to travel around the world, how many countries have you been to and which place is your favourite?
(In the picture on the right Giorgia with korean Collegues performing together in South Korea) Giorgia: yes, exactly right! Music takes us around the globe and definitely that is one of the most gorgeous aspect of this charming job! Except for Arctic and Antarctica we have performed in every continents🤣: in around 25 countries. Every place has a different identity and its uniqueness! For sure at the moment I feel most attracted by Asia because in western countries I have already spent most part of my life. Furthermore, after spending five years performing in Korea and then a couple of
years between China and Japan, I have been totally enchanted by the East and of course since I discovered the many wonders of chinese Language, I am fully immersed and totally intrigued by chinese culture, philosophy and general oriental lifestyle !!
(In the picture on the right AiDADUO performing for chinese audience)
金海平 Peter: How many languages do you speak? How do you manage so many languages? Share with us some language study techniques. Giorgia: Just to prepare you in advance..... I love this topic, so I already know it is going to be a long answer. I can speak several languages. I enjoy switching from one to the other. Even when I speak my mother tongue I often use words of other languages if I find them more appropriate to express what I mean. Because I believe just one
language will never be enough to convey the message.....a little bit of truth is spread throughout each and every language! So every time I am abroad performing, I use the spare time to study the language of my audience, to study their songs, in their language, that’s how I ended up speaking so many languages. This way, every contract is a new discovery, a new vision of the world, a new birth, a new challenge full of enthusiasm enriched and enhanced by an ever growing desire of learning!!
(In the picture on top AiDADUO performing in Carrollton, Georgia, USA)
My youtube contest: 15 songs, 15 languages, 8 seconds per song
Regarding languages technique, I am happy to share with you how I usually approach a language. It is a matter of photographic memory together with the ability of counting the images. I associate a number to the image and then I remember its place. I would say that the word “association” in learning a language is fundamental! In fact another thing that I do all the time, is associating the new word to something else, to a word of another language, maybe just acoustically related or not related at all..... but this is only one of a thousand games you need to invent to make it work. Basically, for me, the language learning process is fun and so are the tricks I invent to make it work!😉 Definitely the combination of music and languages is also very effective in the long term memorization process.
(in the left picture, Stefano is also practicing Chinese Characters....)
Stefano: For me learning a new language is even easier:
I just repeat what Giorgia says and it works greatly all the time!!
金海平 Peter: What is the difference between talent and study?
Giorgia: Passion is what I call talent, the idea of learning in a enthusiastic way....., first the information has access to the right part of the brain through an emotional outburst triggered by the pleasure that the subject suggests the brain (talent), then talent also means having the patience to wait and let the information transit from the instinctive passionate right brain approach to the left side where committment, patience, every day effort and focus is required (this I call study).
金海平 Peter: What are you currently working at?
Stefano and Giorgia: Lately we have been focusing mainly on exploring the huge potential of music applied to neurology and brain related activities. The subject is so intriguing that we have elaborated a new kind of therapy called ERGO SUM
The therapy consists of a new and particular multiple counting over the Goldberg Variation by Johannes Sebastian Bach played live.
The ERGO SUM practice is for everyone and it has numerous beneficial wellbeing effects on the body and the mind: enhance focus and concentration, promote relaxation and maximize multi-tasking cognitive abilities, facilitating the synchronized activity of the two cerebral hemispheres.
Ergo Sum also represents an ideal practice for degenerative diseases' prevention, such as Alzheimer and Dementia.
金海平 Peter: How did you get to elaborate a wellbeing Therapy? Giorgia: It actually happened quite naturally. At the beginning of a career we are all mostly worried about succeeding, making a lot of money, and showing our power and big EGO using our job and our abilities.
Well, for a performer this is even 100 thousand times more true.......let alone for a singer!!
But when you grow older and life makes you wiser, you realize there is much more beyond appearances and showing off.
What you seek in your job is not praises anymore but another kind of fulfillment. You see it as a tool to improve your personal wellbeing, your lifestyle and the wellness of others around you. This is how we got started with ERGO SUM.
Stefano: The main question I started asking myself, at a certain point, was: " If we take the word 'entertainment' out of a performance, what do we have left?" Well our answer was ERGO SUM. Music for our self healing, practiced on ourselves first and then shared with the world.
The Interviewer :
Peter King Jin Hai Ping 金海平
Comments