CORSICAN POLYPHONIES : JACKY MICAELLI, JEAN ETIENNE AND MARIE LANGIANNI
Introduction
Jacky Micaelli
Jacky Micaelli was born 46 years ago in Bastia. “I started singing before I started to talk. It wasn’t my decision. That’s how it was,” she confides.
A singer with a deep, full, and agile voice, she debuted in 1983 in polyphony with Vincent Orsini and the poet Bartolomeu Dolvici. In 1988 she represented Corsica at the Printemps de Bourges (spring festival in Bourges), where she received the prize awarded by the listeners of Radio France.
She goes from one forum to another with ease, from sacred songs to traditional, as well as popular, jazz and classical. She has been invited to sing, too, by Jacques Higelin for a show at the Grand Rex in Paris and at the Cirque d’hiver (Winter Circus), as well as by Marcel Péres to perform with the Organum ensemble and the polyphony group Tavagna.
She also appears on the international scene with several tours in Europe, in Japan, and in the United States, and has come out with several albums that have met with both popular and critical success, Corsica Sara, which was honored with a prize from the Charles Cros Academy; le Choc du Monde de la musique (The Shock of World Music) and Diaposon d’or (Gold Tuning Fork) and more recently, Amor’esca in 2001.
And now, Jacky Micaelli has started doing something new with song. She invites herself into the song in order to go further into the encounter with the other. I recognize myself in flamenco, Arab, Mediterranean music, and beyond, African music. Who hasn’t heard the same percussive beats? Those, in fact, of the heart. Mixed in among our differences, we can see many things, in common, too.” Jacky Micaelli knows how to lend her voice to the sacred as well as to the profane repertory with the same passion, the same truth.
Jean-Etienne Langianni
Singer, musician and self-taught composer, Jean-Etienne Langianni performs the polyphonies of his island at the side of Jacky Micaelli, with the Tavagna and A Cumpagnia ensembles. With more than 500 international concerts and twenty recordings to his credit, he also participates in maintaining a tradition that is alive and well through his polyphonic compositions.
Marie Langianni
Having earned a degree at the Institut Supérieur, in the philosophy of art, she studied French and Greek popular songs, then became a member of the Organum ensemble in1995. She has sung with Jacky Micaelli since 1996.
From the press
The rare force of Amor’esca is rooted certainly in the unique quality of Jacky Micaelli’s voice, coming to us from a time before the divisions, a voice burned by the elemental fire that belongs not to a land but THE land, its primordial crust, where winds come from the sea and streams trickle down the waters of life. Empedocles restored woman to life, and Jacky has been able to meld into one substance material from the four corners of the earth, but she brings into her work a love of songs that demand, that curse, that arise from elegy. Also speaking to her work are legend, the cradle, and nursery rhymes. She strives to find a tone, a timbre, accents, all without compromise. Gentle yet firm, penetrating, taut yet supple, vibrant and held high, this voice can do it all, ask for everything, and get it.
P. L. Renou, Jazz Magazine
. . .that’s the voice of Jacky Micaelli, of earth and fire. This sturdy Corsican sings with a strong faith . . . reclaiming her heritage in a melting-pot culture, the singer can carry off equally well the pain of a young starving herder as well as the indignation of a battered Algerian woman . . . (Amor’esca) It’s a kind of blues dominated by mandolin, percussions, and contrabass. A mix of the serious with the light, of tragedy and festivity, which is anchored in the solemnity of the gesture.
Ludovic Perrin, Libération
Visit her Web site: http://www.jackymicaelli.com/