In Bach? by Bahrami and Rea plays Ravello in August

(ANSA) - Perugia, July 29 - After a world premiere at the Umbria Jazz festival, Iranian classical pianist Ramin Bahrami and Italian jazz pianist Danilo Rea will take their joint Bach project on the road, performing at Ravello on August 7.
    The experiment on the frontier between classical and jazz music titled In Bach? is an homage to the celebrated German Baroque composer and musician who influenced the likes of Beethoven, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Mozart, and Schumann.
    At the moment there are no plans for a CD, the prospects for which are "written in the stars" says Bahrami, but the unexpected musical duo want to take their project on tour around Italy and elsewhere.
    The idea, and their friendship, were "born in Rome over a great plate of carbonara and a good glass of wine," Bahrami told ANSA. One of the greatest living interpreters of Bach, the Tehran-born virtuoso is also an avid listener of great jazz pianists of the past such as Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson, and Michel Petrucciani, and he has great admiration for Rea.
    Rea is "the most authoritative, refined and musical of Italian jazz pianists," he said.
    Rea, for his part, explains that their partnership has generated "an absolutely innovative experiment because Bach is a very complex world - it is not like playing standard jazz or an opera aria." "I am 200% faithful to Bach's original message, while Danilo with his harmonic knowledge creates a very amusing jazz tapestry that exalts his modernity," Bahrami said. "This is because Rea is an intelligent, unintrusive musician, and because Bach's music may be 300 years old but seems to have been written today - it can be camouflaged perfectly with jazz".
    "He and I will play this music differently each time and we will find our way while trying to serve the Maestro of Leipzig as best as we can," Bahrami concluded.