Andrea De Carlo
Live Asti, Passepartout Festival. 10-05-2005

For some time now, Andrea De Carlo has chosen to share with his readers a dimension that has long remained purely private. This is music, which the Milanese writer has always carried with him, like the soundtrack to his books. The successful author of "Due di Due," "Uto," and "Macno" presents himself around Italy accompanied by a guitar and an Indian percussionist named Arup Kanti Das, who brings with him the millennial musical experience of his civilization. An extremely complex experience that has never forgotten its instinctive component, as De Carlo is keen to emphasize. A refined way of saying that the concert will be, in essence, improvisation.

So he sits on a chair and plays, drawn into the dialogue of sounds that is easy to establish "with a friend like Arup". "We have known each other for a long time", says De Carlo during one of the long pauses between songs. "Playing with a friend allows you to float in an intense spirit dimension, which is difficult to find when playing with someone hired for the occasion". With the naiveté that belongs to him and makes his speech lovable and light, De Carlo entertains the Passpartout audience, who for over an hour and a half fills the stage with notes containing anonymous questions. The writer answers everything. They talk about the alchemies that link music and words, writing, cinema, timeless passions, and emotions. Love for colors, childhood memories. And again, music. Pieces written by De Carlo himself and left to spiritual drifts, as happened in the '70s and still happens today, in city parks, in evenings at home among friends, wherever one finds themselves with a guitar and a jambé to immerse in the frenetic and harmonic dialogue of sound instinct, in galloping tribal rhythms or placid ballads on the road. Beyond technique and skill. The calm atmosphere of the Astigiano literary festival Passpartout, in the splendid setting of Palazzo Michelerio, enriched by the sculptures of Ovidio Piras, provided the right scenario for a moment of music and literature probably not unforgettable, but with the sincere flavor of an unpretentious pleasure. As an opening evening, Passpartout cannot complain.