The Italian band XY Quartet will hold two concerts in Romania: first on Sunday, April 26th, at Sala Patria of the Brașov Philharmonic, and then on Monday, April 27th, at the Small Hall of the Romanian Athenaeum, as part of the jazz season organized there. Both events will start at 7:00 PM. For more details, I conducted an interview with one of the band members, bassist Alessandro Fedrigo.

Alessandro, you are the bassist of the band, but now you have the important mission of introducing the other members of XY Quartet.

The band also includes Nicola Fazzini (alto saxophone), Saverio Tasca (vibraphone), and Luca Colussi (drums). We are all from northeastern Italy, more precisely from Venice and Trieste.

What can you tell us about your history? What are your most important achievements since you started playing together? I know the band has existed since 2011.

We've done many tours in Italy as well as abroad, in Austria, Germany, Finland, the Netherlands, and Latvia. We're happy to have this band, which has developed its own musical language over time. We've recorded six albums, and in Italy, Musica Jazz magazine ranked us twice in second place among the best Italian bands of the year. We perform original compositions, most of them written by Nicola and me. I hope Romanian audiences will enjoy our music, as it will be our first time performing in Romania.

How would you briefly describe your music? Jazz improvisation is clearly the core element, but I noticed influences from outside jazz, or even outside music.

We're interested in all kinds of music, and at the beginning we wanted to adopt techniques from contemporary music and improvise based on them. But because we've traveled a lot-by train, plane, or car-we came up with all sorts of ideas during those journeys and invented a fictional character, Jon Futuru, who lives in the future and sends us emails describing what music sounds like in his time. We then try to compose following his instructions.

So you're kind of chosen ones, with an important mission for the future of music?

Yes, in my mind the band has become a sort of sci-fi project. In concerts, we try to explain our ideas and fantasies, with a sense of humor that is reflected both in the music and in the audience's reaction, which is wonderful.

In other words, your music is very serious, but you don't take yourselves too seriously.

Yes, exactly-that's our goal. Our music is serious, but we want to perform it with humor. It's very important for us to feel free, to improvise, and to express ourselves authentically.

What do you expect from the concerts you will soon perform in Brașov and Bucharest?

We are very happy to come to Romania. I'm sure we will find an audience willing to share our music, emotions, and ideas. I'm really looking forward to coming to Romania and presenting our music live in these beautiful places.