BIOGRAPHY

Clarinetist, composer and enthusiastic researcher. Born in 1986 in Mogoro, Sardinia, in the subregion of the Alta Marmilla, where she finds her first clarinet under the Christmas Tree.

Shardana, her first recording, published by Caligola Records, summarises well her experiences in life, in her studies and her musical development. Zoe graduated in clarinet at the age of 18 at the music Conservatory of Cagliari. Afterwards, she specialised at the Conservatory of Rovigo with full marks and cum laude in Chamber Music and as a Solista. Experience in contemporary classical music and live electronics led to the desire of expanding her knowledge in musical composition. She therefore enrolled and graduated in Musical Composition in Rovigo. Such a degree was also followed by another one in Approaches to Jazz Music, after playing Franco Donatoni’s Hot together with Marco Tamburini. Her love for improvisation led her to further studies in African American culture, with Mauro Negri, Nico Gori e Fabio Petretti. Zoe gained remarkable experience at the Accademia del Teatro Alla Scala in Milan, at the International Seminars of the Accademia Chigiana, of the Accademia Internazionale Siena Jazz and of Nuoro Jazz, and from the exposure to the Spanish culture and music during a visit to the Conservatorio Superior de Musica de Murcia.Zoe has always been very keen on experimenting and interested in thorough analysis throughout her academic and artistic career. Her performances are diverse and characterised by a variety of styles and genres, as for examples Mozart’s concerts as a Solista, Chamber ensembles, Combos and Big Band music. Always full of fresh ideas, she also undertook project management activities at the “F. Venezze” Conservatory in Rovigo. An example of a project successfully managed by Zoe is the training course “Comporre con i Suoni del Polesine” (Composing with the Sounds of Polesine region), where new musical horizons made of a mixture of styles and soundscape composition are explored. This experience gave further input to her personal project of researching into Sardinia, a process that lasted several years and that involved investigating Sardinian music, history and archaeology. The invaluable artistic heritage of Sardinia, as well as its mysteries, legends and tales led Zoe to a period of personal reflection about her own origins, which finally produced Shardana. The Shardana project has already been hosted by the Sudtirol Jazz Festival 2016 with two performances: the first one at San Candido (BZ), while the second at Avelengo Merano 2000 (BZ), in one of the most important editions of the festival featuring the international collaboration between Italy and Austria. The themes with which Zoe deals also led to another achievement: the aleatoric sheet music that was exhibited at the Palazzo Ducale in Lucca and that was awarded a distinction at the International Prize for Non-Conventional Score Music Writing 2016. Is launeddas entered in Zoe’s life as well as in her artistic vision, as we can indeed hear in Shardana, where their timbre and potential have been fully explored in a very personal way.

Zoe collaborated with: New Art Symphonic, Filarmonica Italiana, Filarmonia Veneta, Sinfonica di Pescara, Fiati della Sardegna, la Orquestra de Percusion y Vientos de Murcia, la United European Chamber Orchestra, Biennale di Venezia per l’artista Joachim Schoenfeldt.

She had the honour of playing with: Alvin Curran, Steven Bernstein, Bruno Biriaco, Reuben Rogers, Furio Di Castri, Tino Tracanna, Bruno Tommaso, Paolo Fresu, Mauro Ottolini, Nico Gori, Marco Tamburini, Bebo Ferra, Vincenzo Vasi, Dario Cecchini, Valentino Corvino, Marcello Tonolo, Stefano Senni, Massimo Morganti, Ryan Truesdell, Luca Mannutza, Lukas Kranzelbinder.

Zoe performed at: Accademia Teatro alla Scala, Teatro de Corbeil Essonnes (France), Teatro de Romea in Murcia (Spain), Teatro Camploy in Verona, Teatro Sociale in Rovigo, Teatro Verdi in Padova, Teatro G.Verdi in San Severo (FG), Teatro del Fuoco in Foggia, Sala Verdi in Milano, Casinò of Montecarlo, Teatro per una Società Senza Pensieri, Rocca di Campiglia in Livorno, Teatro Massimo in Pescara, Baku (Azerbaijan) for Bulgari Italia, Biennale di Arte Contemporanea in Venice, Festival Internacional de Orquestas de Jóvenes de Murcia, Venezze Jazz Festival, Siena Jazz, Nuoro Jazz, Amnesty International, Piacenza Jazz Club, Veneto Jazz, MITO Settembre Musica, Südtirol Jazz Festival.