Winner of the Sophie Desmarais International Composition Competition for Large Jazz Ensemble (open category)
Anna Bignami will be awarded a prize of 2500 $ CA for her piece “The Blue Fairy” which will be performed in a world-premier by the Orchestre national de jazz de Montréal in the coming 2023 concert season.
« Cette pièce a séduit les juges par la qualité de sa composition, son originalité, par ses jeux de timbre et textures pouvant être influencé par Gil Evans ou Maria Schneider, le tout créant une ambiance sonore à mi-chemin entre la musique de film noir et le jazz contemporain »
« This piece seduced the judges for the quality of its composition, its originality, for its play of timbres and textures that could be influenced by Gil Evans or Maria Schneider, all creating a sound atmosphere halfway between the music of film noir and contemporary jazz.»
Coming Soon

The Bignami Veltri Jazz Ensemble debuts with new repertoire inspired by the Spoon River Anthology
“Epitaphs from the Hill” is a cross-disciplinary encounter between music and the poetry of Edgar Lee Masters. The collection of poems titled “Spoon River Anthology”(1914) tells the stories of the inhabitants of an imaginary town, Spoon River. These stories are told by the inhabitants themselves in the form of epitaphs, where they finally reveal the darkest parts of their lives. Their tales of corruption, bitterness, violence, unreciprocated love, and longing for lost youth, destroy the idyllic image of the American village of the time leaving space to a more crude, realistic depiction. Once dead, the characters tell the hard truth, free from the fake smiles of socially accepted behaviour. This is arguably a highly relevant issue of today’s society: often, we find ourselves swallowing our negative emotions, for the sake of pleasing our peers, being accepted or because we convince ourselves that, by not addressing our issues, eventually we will make them disappear. Positivity is misused as a tool to hide inner problems, thus merely burying the issues rather than confronting them.
“Epitaphs from the Hill” invites the listeners to quit avoiding their hidden skeletons and to finally work through them, before it’s too late.
concert dates: 30/04 at Kammersalen, Musikhuset Aarhus ; 1/05 at Metronomen, Frederiksberg
supported by Frederiksberg Kommune, Dansk Artist Forbund and Aarhus Kommune.
To contact the Bignami veltri Jazz ensemble for booking, press or other enquiries please e-mail bignami.veltri@gmail.com
“ As a good orator can mold words and figures of speech to provoke a strong emotional reaction in the audience, a composer can craft every single aspect of music to represent feelings, concepts and stories.”
MY PAST PROJECTS
3-Objekter: et Spil om Selvbillede featuring Laura Wildt.
With monologues written by Regina Rex and stage direction by Anna Katrin Einarsdottir.

MY ARRANGING WORK
"Evliya", single in the critically acclaimed album "Tutku" by Kalaha and Aarhus Jazz Orchestra
QUESTIONS?
Whether you’d like to collaborate, commission me a piece or just start a conversation you can contact me any time.