Francesco Cafiso eager to share his love of jazz with Iranian audience
Mehr News Agency – Prominent Italian jazz saxophonist Francesco Cafiso has said that he is eager to share his love of jazz with Iranian enthusiasts. “There are a lot of jazz fans but not many jazz musicians in Iran and I’ll be happy to share my experiences, and give them my support,” Francesco Cafiso said in his last week interview with the Tehran Times.
He was in Tehran to perform and hold a workshop during the 3rd Show of Hands Festival, a professional event for improvisations, which wrapped up on August 28. The festival put its spotlight on solo woodwind instruments improvisation this year. He said that his two-hour workshop at the festival was not enough to share his knowledge in detail with the numerous Iranian jazz aficionados.
“I like to do that more often as the participants in the workshop were very enthusiastic. It was a chance for them to improve their skills and for me to develop some jazz culture here,” he added. He called Iranians good audiences and said, “During my performances at the festival, they were very interactive and cooperative. They were warm and open to my performance. It was enjoyable for me.”
This is the second time Cafiso is visiting Iran. For the first time, he visited Iran in January 2018 to perform at the 33rd Fajr International Music Festival. Francesco Cafiso thanked the Italian Embassy in Tehran and the Ambassador Giuseppe Perrone for supporting his participation to Show of Hands Festival. He then praised Festival director Ramin Sediqi for organizing the event. Sediqi is also the founder of Hermes Records, a Tehran-based studio active in producing and promoting modern Persian music, who won the Professional Excellence Award at the World Music Expo – WOMEX 2015.
“Mr. Sediqi did a great job. The festival was perfect and I am completely satisfied with my performances. It is a unique festival. I’ve never been to a solo woodwind festival before. You should be proud of it,” Cafiso mentioned. As a young talent, Cafiso took his first steps in music when he was seven. He has travelled to many countries to hold concerts and received enormous awards in Italy and abroad, including the Massimo Urbani National Award in Urbisaglia, the EuroJazz Award in Lecco, the International Jazz Festivals Organization Award in New York, the Django d’Or in Rome.
“Every award is important to me, because it tells me that I am doing a great job,” he noted. In his sojourn in Tehran, Cafiso also joined several Iranian musicians at the Pars Music Institute in Tehran, performing a concert that blended the Persian music with jazz.
Cafiso described the performances as an interesting experience. “I am contented with this kind of combination. It seems like two different languages and two different cultures meet and try to dialogue. When you acquainted with some other cultures you become a better person,” he stated. “Although we come from two different countries in this concert, with different musical backgrounds and perceptions, we are a team and this makes it a nice adventure,” he added.
Planning on a concert tour around Iran for his next visit, Cafiso said: “When I came here for the first time, I met a lot of people, I made a lot of friends and I fell in love with the culture, the place and Iranian people and food, so for the second time, I decided to stay longer and visit some Iranian cities,” he said. “When I get back to Italy, I definitely recommend my friends to visit Iran. They should know this culture and place and they should to see it in person,” he concluded.
