Paolo Angeli

Sardinian avant-garde folk guitarist

Guitarist and Vocalist Born 1970 in Palau, a small port in northern Sardinia He started to play guitar when he was nine. In 1989, he moved to Bologna and started to play with various contemporary music ensembles, practicing collective composition and improvisation In 1993, he met Giovanni Scanu, a legendary Sardinian guitar player who taught him the forms and the components of the canto a chitarra gallurese e logudorese, old songs in the Sardinian dialects of Gallurese and Logudorese, traditionally accompanied by guitar.

From this clash between avant-garde and popular tradition came Angeli’s Sardinian prepared-guitar: an instrument with 18 strings—a hybrid between baritone guitar, cello, and drums, replete with hammers, pedals, and variable pitch propellers. Since 1997, he has played concerts with his modified guitar all over the world at some of the most important festivals and theaters of Europe, Japan, Australia, North and South America, Russia, and Africa. Angeli has a degree in ethnomusicology and has digitalized the Archivio Mario Cervo, the most important collection of Sardinian records and traditional music. As a researcher, he has published Canto in Re, a volume of historical analysis of the cantu a chittera. With Nanni Angeli, he is the artistic director of Isole che parlano, an international arts festival that has taken place in Palau since 1996.