The American tour of guitarist Paolo Angeli covers a dozen states. It started on March 6 in Cleveland, continuing to New York (at the legendary “The Public Theater”), then Baltimore and Philadelphia. On March 13 and 14, Angeli will perform four sets at SFJazz, the most prestigious jazz club in San Francisco thanks to the support of the Italian Cultural Institute San Francisco. He will then travel to Portland, Denver, Omaha, Minneapolis, Amherst, and Kitterly.

Considered one of today’s most important musical innovators, Angeli has developed a synthesis of sounds which places traditional Sardinian music in the context of contemporary sounds, creating a bridge between memory and innovation, and giving shape to what he himself defines as “avant-garde music”.

Centerpiece of his solo work is an original guitar he personally crafted: an orchestra-like instrument with 25 strings, piano hammers, music drones, and movable bridges to evoke the kora and the sitar, played in pizzicato, with a bow, for percussive and noise functions. Jamie Ludwig (Chicago Reader) sums up his innovations: “… many critics think the era of guitar music is over, but they overlook Paolo Angeli…”

Back in the '90s, the American music press welcomed his first albums with surprise and enthusiasm. By the early 2000s, his performances in legendary clubs in New York and San Francisco were greatly successful among critics and the public. This thirty-year journey led Paolo Angeli to perform in 2018 at Carnegie Hall, the temple of international music, and to be nominated for two consecutive years for Grammy Awards with his albums Jar'a and Rade.

Paolo Angeli has often reiterated that his most congenial setting is live concerts, where he is free to reinvent his music, changing the setlist every night and leaving plenty of space for improvisation. The live performances will feature his last three solo albums (Jar'a, Rade, Nijar), as well as tracks from his previous works. During the tour, Angeli will also present new, unreleased tracks that will be part of his upcoming studio album, set to be released in May.