Programme & Tickets

A singer who is also a songwriter. A musician who harmonizes deep emotions with incisive social criticism. The term “cantautore” dates back to the 1960s: While the record industry was searching for an Italian counterpart to the singer-songwriters of the Anglo-American world, songwriters interested in themes of everyday life increasingly distanced themselves from the commercial mainstream of Italian pop. When the cantautore Luigi Tenco committed suicide in 1967, embittered after his elimination from the Sanremo Song Contest, the counter-movement in Italian popular music gained a martyr who only served to unite the scene even more closely. Manuel Apice, born in La Spezia in 1995, is one of the most exciting heirs to this tradition, which he also explores as a music historian. In his mid-twenties, he released his first solo album, “Beltempo,” and won several prestigious singer-songwriter awards. His second album, “Attimi di sole,” was released in 2022. In a trio with jazz guitarist Fabio Mano and saxophonist Francesco Mazzali, Apice now presents a programme that combines selected classics from the “cantautore” repertoire with his own compositions. Apice’s songs deal with the small yet profound questions of modern existence. They masterfully navigate the fine line between lightheartedness and subtle melancholy. “Cemento fresco” (“fresh concrete”) is the title of Apice’s song about the generation in their late twenties—to which he himself belongs—that oscillates between fear and hope …

Running time: approx. 70 min, no intermission