LEMA by Paolo Angelli

Paolo Angeli Live in the Green Sanderson Hall at Hugh's Room, 296 Broadview Avenue
Show at 8pm, Doors at 7pm
$45+ in advance, $52+at the door

Anyone who has attended a solo performance by the Sardinian musician Paolo Angeli – often presented as a single-act piece – knows they are witnessing a Homeric musical journey. It is a voyage of departures and arrivals, where composition and improvisation weave a narrative filled with haunting melodies and concrete sounds that evoke soundscapes ranging from post-industrial to those deeply connected to nature.

At the heart of the concert is the prepared Sardinian guitar, conceived by Paolo Angeli between 1993 and 1996 and perfected over 30 years through three prototypes. This orchestra-instrument, a hybrid between a baritone guitar, a cello, and a drum set, currently features 25 strings, piano-like hammers, propellers for creating drone sounds, movable bridges, and various attachments—evoking the sounds of a harp, electric kalimbas, kora, and sitar. It is played using plucking, a bow, and percussive techniques.

Thanks to his innovative approach – ranging from avant-rock walls of sound, desert-like adagios, flamenco compás, Middle Eastern phrasings, and echoes of minimalism – Paolo Angeli has forged a hybrid musical poetics that has allowed him to authoritatively renew the language of contemporary guitar playing. Building upon this instrumental foundation, the musician reaches moments of deep pathos with melismatic vocal passages, an expression of Sardinia’s most ancient traditions.

The focus of the performance will be LEMA, the musician's latest work, released on May 9, 2025.

Lema (Spanish for motto or slogan) is a direct synthesis, capable of encompassing the complexity of a musical thought free from genre boundaries, in which Paolo Angeli develops thirty years of coexistence with the prepared Sardinian guitar.

PAOLO ANGELI BIO

Paolo Angeli is considered one of the most important innovators on the international music scene. Originally from Palau (at the northern tip of Sardinia), he grew up with his gaze turned toward the sea.

Starting from the traditional instrument, thanks to a decade-long apprenticeship with master Giovanni Scanu and the influences of 20th-century avant-garde visionaries, he created the prepared Sardinian guitar, a true orchestra-instrument.

Since the mid-1990s, he has embraced influences from free jazz, folk noise, minimal pop, contemporary flamenco, Arabic music, and post-rock, reachin at a synthesis language that brings Sardinian traditional music into the contemporary world. Improvisation is the driving force behind Paolo Angeli’s 30-year career, not only as a means of connecting and developing compositional structures but also as a practice of communication among musicians from diverse latitudes and musical cultures.

His journey reached a milestone in 2018 with a performance at Carnegie Hall in New York, cementing his place among the world’s leading “innovators with roots” and defining a groundbreaking path for Mediterranean avant-garde music.

Paolo Angeli has released 13 solo albums and contributed to over 50 records. Since 2005, he lives in Spain and regularly tours the most prestigious festivals and theaters across all continents. He has improvised and collaborated with hundreds of musicians, including Pat Metheny – who has used a replica of Paolo Angeli’s Guitar since 2003- Fred Frith, Iva Bittová, Hamid Drake, Evan Parker, Antonello Salis, Jon Rose, Iosonouncane, and many others. Wednesday June 3.

296 Broadview is not yet a fully wheelchair accessible venue, with stairs between all levels. Our goal is to fix that, and we need your support to do so - please consider making a donation towards our goals to make HRL the best listening room in Toronto!