Cristina Zavalloni’s musical background is steeped in jazz, bel canto, and composition. She was born in Bologna and, while starting off her carrier as a jazz vocalist on the avant jazz scene, she attended the Conservatorio di Musica “Giovan Battista Martini”, singing and composition classes. She also studied classical and modern dance.
She appeared in many important european venues, concert seasons , jazz festivals such as Montreux Jazz Festival, North Sea Jazz Festival, Free Music Jazz Festival (Antwerp), Moers Music, Bimhuis (Amsterdam), Umbria Jazz, London Jazz Festival, New Yokr Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, Theatre Carré and Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Teatro alla Scala (Milan), Palau de la Musica (Barcelona), Barbican Center (London), New Palace of Arts (Budapest), Auditorium Parco della Musica (Rome), Walt Disney Hall (Los Angeles), Biennale Musica in Venice, Sankt Poelten Festspielhaus, Amici della Musica in Firenze, Beijing Concerto Hall, Grande Auditório, Fundação Gulbenkian, Lisboa, Teatro Filarmonico di Verona, Teatro La Venice di Venezia, Teatro Comunale di Bologna.
She has sung with London Sinfonietta, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Schoenberg Ensemble, Sentieri Selvaggi, MusikFabrik, Orkest De Volharding, Orchestra della RAI (Torino) and Los Angeles Philharmonic, ORT, Orchestra Toscanini, Irish Chamber Orchestra , under the baton of Martyn Brabbins, David Robertson, Stefan Asbury, Reinbert De Leeuw, Oliver Knussen, David Atherton, Jurjen Hempel, Georges-Elie Octor, Andrea Molino, Marco Angius among others.
She enjoys a long-term collaboration with Dutch composer Louis Andriessen, who wrote several works for her, as Passeggiata in tram per l’America e ritorno, La Passione, Inanna, Letter from Cathy, Racconto dall’Inferno (DGG Diapason d’Oro prize), the leading role (Dante) in the opera La Commedia (first performance at LA Walt Disney Hall and NY Carnegie Hall in 2010) and the monodrama Anais Nin. She has also collaborated with other composers such as Michael Nyman who wrote for her Acts of Beauty, and created Cornelis De Bondt Gli Toccha la Mano, Paolo Castaldi A Fair Mask, and other works by Gavin Bryars, Carlo Boccadoro, Luca Mosca, Emanuele Casale. Cristina Zavalloni performed the american premiere of James McMillan Raising Sparks at Carnegie Hall in 2011.
Zavalloni has also deep interest in baroque music: she was Drusilla in Monteverdi’s Incoronazione di Poppea at the Opera du Rhin de Strasbourg, directed by David McVicar, conducted by Rinaldo Alessandrini. She performed Clorinda of Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda directed by Mario Martone, at Ravello Festival and at Rome Opera, with a musical arrangement by composer Giorgio Battistelli. In 2006, she sang the principal role in Platel – Cassol production, VSPRS, based on Monteverdi’s Vespri della Beata Vergine and Maria Magdalena’s in the choreographer’s latest work Pitiè! (touring with Belgian modern dance company Les Ballets C de la B 2008-2009), inspired by J. S. Bach’s Saint Matthew’s Passion.
Chamber music repertoir with Andrea Rebaudengo with recitals throughout Europe and Central Asia (Uzbekistan). Her repertoire now includes, among others, Cage, Montsalvatge, Berio, Ravel, Poulenc, Stravinsky, Milhaud, Debussy, Satie, De Falla. She performed in an all stars concert (featuring Mario Brunello, Andrea Lucchesini, Gabriele Mirabassi, Marco Rizzo, Giampaolo Pretto) as well as with Brass Bang! (Paolo Fresu, Gianluca Petrella, Marcus Rojas, Seve Bernsterin) and recent cooperation are with Jasn Moran and Benoit Delbecq.
The work, co produced by Accadmia Chigiana and London Sinfonietta, started touring in November 2010 through Holland, Germany, UK and the US. She’s also performed in duo recitals with pianist Andrea Rebaudengo in some of the world best known concert halls and venues (i.e. in Carnegie Hall, April 2010; Time in jazz in Berchidda). She has performed in Bologna with MPB mandolin player Hamilton de Holanda, in Rome at Rome Jazz Festival (Auditorium Parco della Musica) with jazz clarinet player Gabriele Mirabassi’s trio and again with Gabriele Mirabassi, Roberto Taufic and Guinga in a three days concerts series in Bologna (Carte Blanche à Cristina Zavalloni – Summer 2010). She has debuted in Uri Caine’s Lamentations at Stuttgart’s Musikfest, in Joachim Schloemer’s Engel der Verzweiflung in St. Poelten and Friburg, and in Emanuele Casale’s Conversazioni con Chomsky in Reggio Emilia.
In 2011 Cristina Zavalloni has performed the US Premiere of James McMillan’s Raising Sparks at Carnegie Hall, on March 2nd 2011. On March 5th she’s also debuted at San Francisco’s Other Minds Festival, with Louis Andriessen and Monica Germino. She has debuted in Luca Mosca’s L’Italia del destino a the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, and at Queen Elisabeth Hall in London with the UK Premiere of Louis Andriessen’s Anais Nin. In June, she has debuted in Utopia::47 a very last Passion at Amsterdam’s Muziekgebouw aant’ij for the Holland Festival. She has debuted in Spain with her quartet IDEA (Madrid) and, together with Carmen Linears, Barbara Walker, Uri Caine and his ensemble, in Caine’s Lamentations (Segovia). She has debuted in a new project in quartet with Aka Moon trio, at Jardins du Collège Notre-Dame de Bellevue, Dinant (Belgium), in the context of Dinant Jazz Nights.
In 2012, she has performed in Louis Andriessen’s Anais Nin US Premiere, on February 28th at Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles. The recording of the opera with London Sinfonietta is available on the orchestra’s web site. She has also debuted in Beijing’s Concert Hall in Andriessen’s Racconto dall’Inferno, and sung in Monteverdi-Battistelli’s Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda at Terme di Caracalla in Roma. She has returned to Bantry’s West Cork Chamber Music Festival with works by Monteverdi, Frescobaldi and her world première of B.Britten’s Phaedra. She has also debuted with her jazz quartet IDEA at Grande Auditório, Fundação Gulbenkian, Lisboa (Portugal) and has performed as Django Reinhardt 2011 Special Guest, in Paris’ Theatre du Chatelet. She has debuted live in Bologna with French jazz pianist Benoit Delbecq.
She will soon be performing, together with the composer, Uri Caine’s version of Shoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, Moonsongs, in October 2012, in Vienna. Shortly after she will sing in Moscow International House and Perm Philharmonie. By the end of the year, she will in Bangkok together with Bangkok Philhamonic conducted by Federico Mondelci.
Being herself a composer and jazz bandleader, Zavalloni has conceived several programs, such as Scoiattoli Confusi (duo with pianist Stefano De Bonis), When you go yes is yes! (with her Open Quartet), Metti una sera, a homage to the Italian Song of the 1960’s (commissioned by Musica 90 Festival Turin, 2003), Con tutto il mio amore, a tribute to Cathy Berberian 20 years later (Teatro Ariosto, Reggio Emilia, 2003), Idea (2006), I Testimoni (premiere april 2007, ordered by Piccolo Teatro Regio and Unione Musicale Turin), Per Caso Aznavour (with her quartet Idea), premiered in 2009 and toured through all 2009 and 2010 in Europe most notable jazz venues (Banlieues Bleues, Klara Festival, Concertgebouw_Bruges, Bimhuis, Verona Jazz, Blue Note – Milano).
She has recorded for Winter & Winter, Felmay, Ishtar, Cantaloupe, and at present is under contract with the label EGEA for which she has recorded her latest CD in quartet, Solidago (Egea 2009), including some of her new compositions and a selection of Charles Aznavour’s covers. Her new album with Radar Band, La donna di cristallo (Egea Records), was presented in summer 2011 together with special guest Brazilian percussionist Cyro Baptista, at Roccella Jazz Festival (coproducer). The cd has been presented in Italy’s most important jazz venues (Salone del Libro di Torino, Casa del Jazz Roma, European Jazz Expo in Cagliari, musikè in Padova and Rovigo) and broadcast on Rai 3 (radio and tv).
In 2012 she is special guest at the Django Reinhardt Prize of Académie du Jazz de France. She sang at Grande Auditório della Fundação Gulbenkian in Lisboa with Per Caso Aznavour,then she is in Rome with Pierrot Lunaire by Schoenberg, at Teatro Nazionale . She sang the first USA performance of Anais Nin by L. Andriessen at Walt Disney Hall di Los Angeles . In May she was at Beijing Concert Hall with Racconto dall’Inferno by L. Andriessen and she was part of the project Strange Fruit by Fabrizio Cassol at KVS and at Theatre National in Bruxelles. She was reinvited by the West Cork Chamber Music Festival with Phaedra by Britten and she performed again Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda by Monteverdi-Battistelli, directed by Mario Martone, at the Terme di Caracalla in Roma and then at the Konzerthaus in Wien Pierrot Lunaire by A. Schoenberg and Moonsongs by Uri Caine. At the end of the year she was at the Perm Philharmonie, and in Moscow at the International House with the Virtuosi Italiani, in Bangkok with Federico Mondelci and the Bangkok Symphony Orchestra.
In 2013 she hold a masterclass at Cartagena (Colombia), for the Festival Internacional de Musica. Then she made a tour with Brass Bang! (Paolo Fresu, Gianluca Petrella, Steve Bernstein, Marcus Rojas), in Barocco! a special project inspired by Baroque authors such as Frescobaldi, Stradella, Monteverdi, Handel. She also revived Moonsongs by Uri Caine al Teatro Comunale di Modena (15 aprile). She made her debut in Britten’s The rape of Lucretia at Teatro Alighieri in Ravenna, at Teatro Valli in Reggio Emilia and at Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, conducted by Jonathan Webb , followed by The turn of the screw ( Miss Jessel) at Teatro Comunale di Bologna , for 100th year Britten anniversary.
Her last CD La donna di cristallo, with Radar Band, at the Lugo Opera Festival, Torino Jazz Festival in front of a crowd of more than 10.000 people.
Cristina Zavalloni sang the title role in Carmen , in a special version of Bizet opera conceived by Orchestra di Piazza Vittorio’ s version at the Festival Les Nuits de Fourvière in Lyon and in Rome at Terme di Caracalla for Teatro dell’Opera
In 2014 she sang Berio’s Folk Songs with Sentieri Selvaggi in Milano , Società del Quartetto. Then compositions by Marcello Panni in Roma at Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia , La Commedia by Andriessen at Washington, as well as concerts in Amsterdam, Siena and she revived Barocco! with Brass Bang! in Treviso and Brescia.
In 2015 she was invited by the Orchestra of the Radio Svizzera Italian at Lugano and appeared in concerts in Utrecht, Amsterdam, Achtbrucken Festival in Koeln , with Andrea Rebaudengo in Warsaw, and at Cremona’s Auditorium del Museo del Violino ; she was again with Andrea Rebaudengo and Gabriele Mirabassi in Torino ( Amici della Musica). She created the new opera by Mauro Moontalbetti Corpi Eretici,at Reggio Emilia, conductor Lanzillotta, director Marco Baliani.
Besides the concerts with the Britten Symphonia and BBC Symphony Orchestra she is invited to sing Berio’s Flok Songs with Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto , conducted by Marco Angius and she will be again in Amsterdam for Theatre of the World , a new opera by Andriessen which will be created at the Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra in May 2016, directed by Pierre Audi.
Her compositions are published by Egea IDEA (2006), Tilim –Bom (2008), Solidago (2009), La donna di cristallo (2012).
