Born in Bologna (Italy) in 1964, he is a bassist, double bassist and composer. After he graduated at the Conservatoire, he attended various jazz and rock master classes.
As a leader he has made several CDs and DVDs with a jazz and classical-contemporary music flavour, including:
Minimized (CFM 1998)
Tarabuk (Velut Luna 2005)
Influences (Echoes 2006)
Live at the Castle (Echoes 2007)
Gestire lo Spazio (Echoes 2008)
Eye Sound , Psaico Bop and Re-Cover (Echoes 2009).
He is currently working on new projects such as: Asymmetric mirror (performance for stylus contrabass, live electronics + video manipulation), Eye Sound (electro-jazz + video manipulation) and the Psaico Bop quartet with Fabrizio Puglisi on piano, Alessio Alberghini on sax and Claudio Trotta on drums. In 2008 he set up a specialisation school for bassists and double bassists in Bologna, named basslab.it™, where he is currently involved as a director and master trainer.
A collection of reviews on his album Gestire Lo Spazio (Echoes 507):
...I thank you for sending me the cd Gestire lo Spazio by Tiziano Zanotti. It is a lovely recording and I find his playing accomplished and evocative. I wish you much success!...
(Michael Manring)
...If you've been looking for some inspiration to take your bass playing in new directions, there is plenty to experience on Gestire Lo Spazio...
(Musicplayers.com)
...Despite the rather limited instrumental palette, Zanotti is capable of taking solo bass as far as it can go through his judicious use of effects and a dash or two of piano for added color...
(Cadence Magazine)
PROJECT
ASYMMETRIC MIRROR
NEW SOUND PERSPECTIVES
A performance joining technological innovation to musical tradition
Tiziano Zanotti, stylus contrabass* & electronic effects
Diego Gavioli, video design
* Performance available also on electric bass
Asymmetric Mirror. New Sound Perspectives” is a new audiovisual project that was developed by a group of artists and technicians around the Stylus Contrabass, an innovative musical instrument with extremely sophisticated technology matching a very natural sound.
The audience is involved in an absorbing multi-sensory experience where images and sounds, closely connected since the beginning of the project thanks to a shared design and composition process, are intersected to create a space thick with iridescent emotions and atmospheres. Songs have been composed by Tiziano Zanotti and Nicola Ciarmatori specifically for the Stylus Contrabass, to experiment the endless potential of such a peculiar instrument. Different pieces of pre-recorded electronic material are processed live by the bassist to create multiple sounds and give energy and variety to the performance (almost like having a whole band on stage). Video installations by Diego Gavioli are synchronised to the music and mix images taken from the external reality, animations and digital elaboration. They tend to reflect the music that is being played (or vice versa), but sometimes these analogies and parallels are not so precise… asymmetric, so to say.
The Stylus Contrabass was born after three years of hard work by the bassist Zanotti, the luthier Mauro Marchesini and the bassist, luthier and IT expert Paolo Betti. Almost a piece of art whose futurist design is inspired to the double bass but complemented by state-of-art electronic equipment. The sound is produced experimentally by special optical pick-ups never applied before to such kind of instrument, while the integration of a Midi channel helps create unlimited sound tones. (An Echoes production 2011)
Duration: 60 minutes full version – 30 minutes short version
Composers: Tiziano Zanotti, Nicola Ciarmatori
“Exploring Asymmetric Mirror: Sign Sound Signature Track”
The musical itinerary begins and is the origin of precise sonic timbres that evolve to assume an individual signature, designed” again and again, building until the creation of a multitude of single signatures/sound that characterise its extension. A form of continual perfection of sign/sound and its adaptation. Sonic structures that are unveiled in all their vividness, one by one: the notes recount the multiple events of music history that at times we seemingly recall. Notes that lead us to rediscover memory, our own memory, and delve into our experience to understand the meaning of the asymmetric mirror, the many sources of inspiration. That which in one moment appears recognisable, in another instant eludes us and we are left to watch and listen. It departs and we await its return. And so it is, but it never abandons us forever, because in exploring unexpected and surprising sound, the musical journey overflows a definable course, to incorporate evolutionary adaptations to sonic perception. Sound-object is the force behind this exquisite feat. As the sign/sound brings meaning to experience, to the objects of reality, it transforms the meaning of the objects themselves, expanding and releasing them by taking them under its control. In this way, the abstract quality of music reveals its mathematical aspect that as rational is a pure product of the intellect. Or more precisely its geometrical aspect, as it is music based on meanings/objects that “play” in turn running parallel to each other. More and more musical spaces open to reveal numerous possibilities of “habitable architectural sound”. The atmospheric space opens even further and through the mirror doubles the emotional vision: a musical expansion involving the body, mind, light and physical space. A sonic and malleable atmosphere translated in many images. Longed for places. The musical journey unravelled like a narrative, materialised like an object, begins and reveals its course. (© Marinella Galletti)
Diego Gavioli - Video Design Artist
He was born in Cento (Italy) in 1980. He attended the DAMS Cinema course at the University of Bologna, an editing training course at the Centro di Cinematografia di Bologna and a Direction training course at the CentroLab of Rome. In 2005 he wrote and directed Delicato e Gelido, short film awarded at the festival "Lavori in corto Dams". He works as an editor and director mainly of music videos, short films and corporate videos. In 2010 he became an Apple Certified Trainer and started to cooperate with Audio Engine Music (Apple Training Centre), teaching within Fina Cut Pro courses. Films: 2010 RMY - Relazione Mentale Y (short film); 2009 Eye Sound Video Manipulation (live in studio); 2008 Viveri di riserva (videoart); 2007 Gocce (music video); 2006 Moebius Strip (music video); 2005 Delicato e Gelido (short film).
TECHNICAL RIDER
The musician play on audio bases that are synchronised to the videos. Important: the visual and audio aspects must be perfectly balanced; therefore, in addition to having a suitable PA system, a 16:9 rear projection surface (or a front one) with a base at least 5 meters long (or more) is required.
Performers
N1 Live stylus player (Tiziano Zanotti, musician)
N1 video artist (Diego Gavioli, performance director)
Requested Gear
N.2 power supplies (220 volt) near the musician and the performance director
N1 PA system fitting the room capacity with at least N1 stage monitor (300 Watt minimum)
N3 DI Box (Stylus + audio computer left + right)
N1 rear projector + 16:9 screen with 5mt length base (minimum)
1 table for the laptop
1 chair (for the video artist)
Audio
N1 PA system fitting the room capacity with at least N1 stage monitor
N1 channel for the stylus (through the DI box)
N1 channel computer left (through the DI box)
N1 channel computer right (through the DI box)
N1 stage monitor for the stylus double bass (300 Watt minimum)
Video
Type of signal connected to the projector: VGA
Computer signal resolution 1920 x 1080
