Performance | Italy/Australia
Federico Albanese and Sophie Hutchings
Federico Albanese
Pianist Federico Albanese writes instrumental compositions that draw on contemporary classical music, electronica and even psychedelia. There’s also a cinematic quality to his work, as five years working as a prop builder gave him an appreciation of the relationship between music and film. Clash magazine described his 2016 album, The Blue Hour, as having ‘a lyrical, rhythmic and emotive modern classical sound that enthrals to the last’. At the festival, Albanese will perform his third album, By the Deep Sea. The album creates a meditative space in which to detach from the stresses of daily life.
Sophie Hutchings
Sydney pianist and composer Sophie Hutchings was voted one of the top live instrumentalists in the country at the 2016 National Live Music Awards. Her fifth studio album, Yonder, released in 2017, was described by The Guardian as ‘conjuring images from the edge of the listeners’ consciousness like something half-remembered in the middle of the night’. Hutchings appears as the first half of this superb double bill with genre-fusing pianist Federico Albanese.
‘One of the most hauntingly beautiful records you’ll ever hear.’ —DROWNED IN SOUND on THE BLUE HOUR
‘Sophie Hutchings played a set of such beguiling atmosphere that it seemed to silence the bars and festivalgoers outside.’ —THE GUARDIAN
