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TD Toronto Jazz Festival 2022 | Italy’s Vittorio Mezza performs with the Dominic Mancuso Group

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The Istituto Italiano di Cultura Toronto is pleased to support Vittorio Mezza’s performance with the Dominic Mancuso Group at the 2022 edition of the TD Toronto Jazz Festival.

TD TORONTO JAZZ FESTIVAL

Dominic Mancuso Group
Vittorio Mezza

Tuesday, June 28 | 8:30PM

TD Stage at Festival Village
Village of Yorkville Park
115 Cumberland St | Toronto ON

FREE EVENT | OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

DOMINIC MANCUSO

After 25 years committed to a vision influenced by his culturally diverse world, singer, songwriter, and producer Dominic Mancuso sits at the table with the 21st century and the global village. His resume takes in several CDs, as well as several written scores for television, film and theatre performances, numerous artistic collaborations, and a great number of live shows in Canada and abroad; including The Road to the Lemon Grove (directed by Dale Hildebrand) and The Colossal Failure of a Modern Relationship (directed by Sergio Navarretta), the MANCUSO2 Project (a collaboration with artist Vince Mancuso, since 2000); CANTABILE, with the acclaimed Art of Time Ensemble; music score for Canada’s Rugged Coastal Line, a Readers Digest documentary DVD (Good Earth Productions); music score for David Rocco’s: Amalfi Coast Getaway; Musical Director and Featured Vocalist in the theatrical production, TARANTELLA – 9 shows at La Mama E.T.C. in New York City and 9 shows at The University of Toronto; to name but a few.

In 2010 Dominic Mancuso made history for Italians in Canada. His record, Comfortably Mine, won a Juno Award for World Music Album of The Year. A first for a record sung entirely in Italian or various dialects of the republic, later also garnering him a Canadian Folk Music Award for World Music Artist of the Year.

Following Comfortably Mine, Mancuso returns with the Dominic Mancuso Group (DMG); comprising some of Toronto’s best musicians; a core group sound that drives his multi-lingual compositions towards the very essence of world culture. His desire to perpetuate the chemistry of the group and embrace its wandering spirit was captured on the Sub Urban Gypsy (2014) recording.

Dominic is a strong member of the international community, always contributing new and exciting projects to the cultural landscape. Representing multicultural Canada within a major European Research Project called PERFORMIGRATIONS: People Are the Territory; his evolving musical explorations deeply embedded in his Canadian multicultural roots, are considered of great interest in Europe and especially in Southern Europe, where diversity is a growing reality often confronting large and small communities in dramatic ways.

Collaboration has always intrigued Mancuso – fueling his artistic vision! Mancuso continues in this trajectory by teaming up with Italian renowned pianist-arranger, VITTORIO MEZZA. The new release, Dances In My Mind (2020), pushes DMG and a chamber ensemble towards a soulful blend of singer-songwriter meets classical and jazz. Rich and cinematic in scope, the result is clearly an adult contemporary body of work.

VITTORIO MEZZA

After studying classical music, he graduated with honours in Jazz Music at the S. Cecilia Conservatory in Rome. Many stages follow, including the Chromatic Masterclass with D. Liebman (East Stroudsburg University, Pennsylvania), opening concerts for the Wayne Shorter Quartet, the Peter Erskine Trio and the Mike Stern Band. He plays in Canada, USA, Germany, France, Cameroon, Switzerland, Croazia, Ungheria, France, Japan, South Africa and Australia and is invited to represent Italy at numerous Italian Cultural Institutes and Embassies around the world.

He was the only Italian pianist to perform at the Time Montreux Jazz Piano Solo Competition 2005. He has recorded many CDs as a leader and wrote several publications such as Pianogrups Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 (BERBEN Editions); Birth from a bird and Memories of Love (Florestano Editions); the treatise New Improvisational Paths – Advanced Pentatonic Techniques (Libreria Universitaria), Fragments (UTORPHEUS Editions).

For the referendum Top Jazz 2006, he is included in the category of best new Italian talents, obtaining numerous positive reviews from major international newspapers and magazines.

His music is heard all over the world and is selected for the jazz recordings on ALITALIA airlines.

The cd Vittorio Mezza Trio has ranked among the records of the year for the Jazzit Magazine’s Referendum Jazzit Award Prize 2010,

From the United States, he received a nomination as composer and performer at the Just Plain Folks Music Awards 2017 in Los Angeles for the following songs: AFA, from Vittorio Mezza Trio (Abeat Records) and YOUNIQUE, from the cd MMP (Abeat Records).

As composer, arranger and pianist, he has led several projects including Dances In My Mind with DOMINIC MANCUSO in Canada, Convergence – Mezza Ginsburg Ensemble with Mark Ginsburg in Australia and South Africa (this project was selected as Best CD of the Year in the Jazz Awards category “Best CDs of 2018” by the Indie Acoustic Project, United States of America); MMEQ and MMP with David Milzow in Germany, Napoli Jazz Songs with his Canadian trio, Vittorio Mezza Italian Trio, MP2.

Among Vittorio’s strongest talents is performing solo on the piano: he played several concerts all over the world arranging both original music and composition without any borders: from movie soundtracks to rock music, theatre, classical and pop music, with his deep jazz roots into tradition, he still finds the sense of his work through his personal contemporary music perspective, searching for beauty and uniqueness.

He has collaborated for many years with Italy’s state broadcaster, Rai Radio Televisione. Currently active in the academic field, he holds the Chair of Jazz Piano at the State Music Conservatory of Frosinone. In his carrier he has also held the Electronic Keyboards Course at the Conservatory of Bologna, the Jazz Piano and Jazz Composition Courses at Casa del Jazz and Conservatory of S. Cecilia in Rome, the Jazz Piano Bachelor and Master Degree Course in many Italian Conservatories including Reggio Calabria, Mantua, Perugia, Verona and L’Aquila.

  • Organizzato da: TD Toronto Jazz Festival
  • In collaborazione con: Istituto Italiano di Cultura Toronto