Marco Zanotti

An unconventional, unpredictable musician, tirelessly curious about tradition and prone to experimentation. Marco Zanotti is a composer, performer and producer.

He usually prefers drums and percussions, but often he finds himself handling with different instruments, real or invented ones, with which he communicates with the audience and gives expression to his music.

He is the founder and director of Cucoma Combo (Black Sweat Rec) and of the Classica Orchestra Afrobeat. This last one is a 14-pieces chamber ensemble with which he produced three albums (feat. Seun Kuti, Sekouba Bambino, Baba Sissoko and Njamy Sitson – fourth album is expected in Oct 2023 feat Rokia Traoré) and took part in international festivals and theatres including Glastonbury Festival, Ravenna Festival, Auditorium Manzoni, Auditorium Parco della Musica, Piazza del Duomo (IT).

He also plays in a duo with Gambian griot Jabel Kanuteh, with whom he released two albums in 2020 and 2022, and with avantgarde-impro trio Mothra モスラ  alongside with Fabio Mina and Peppe Frana, their last LP being Mothra モスラ (Vintage Vinyl-HK, 2017) with a China tour in 2016. Also he has being part of Del Barrio collective (Argentina), Elisa Ridolfi‘s fado quintet, Brazilian choro ensamble Regional Matuto and Colombian band Cumbia Poder.

In 2019 he wrote the music and plays for Roberto Castello’s Mbira (best contemporary dance nomination at UBU-prize), he took part in the soundtrack of the movie Gauguin in Tahiti (by Remo Anzovino – Nexo Digital) and took care of the musical research and production of Pamoja Odyssey: a radical act of co-creation, an international project aboard a traditional dhow associated with a flm festival along the coasts of East Africa (www.pamoja.musafr.org).

In 2021 he released his first solo album (in a limited edition double LP) Re-Flexio, in collaboration with artist Gaia Carboni. In 2022 he released Inferno Tapes, the soundtrack of the Ubu prize winning dance show Inferno by Aldes/Roberto Castello.

He collaborates and collaborated with coral ensemble, artists, directors, theatre or dance companies such as Aldes, Fantateatro, Magnifco Teatrino Errante, ERT, Coro Voz Latina, Coro Costanzo Porta, Coro Farthan, Antonella Ruggiero, Patrizia Laquidara, Jacaré, Rogerio Tavares, Elio Camalle, Pavel Urquiza, Patrick Ruffino.

He holds a permanent experimental laboratory called Officina del Ritmo, hosted in 2019 in the program “Le 100 percussioni” by Ravenna Festival.

He translated and curated the Italian edition of bestseller Fela Kuti’s official biography “FELA, this bitch of a life”, by Carlos Moore (2012, Arcana ed.) and a new project on it is on production directed by Castello titled “Gentleman” featuring dj FedericoF.