Concert by Musicians of the Berlin Electronic and Experimental Scene Gruppo di Improvvisazione Giallo Project
On 24 April 2026 (Friday) at 8:30 PM, in the hall of the Mazovia Institute of Culture, as part of the 3rd edition of the Timeless Film Festival Warsaw (17–27 April 2026), a concert by Gruppo di Improvvisazione Giallo will take place – an event that perfectly complements the festival’s Giallo!!! section.
Gruppo di Improvvisazione Giallo is a project initiated by musician and sound artist Hanno Leichtmann, an influential figure within the Berlin electronic and experimental music scene. The project is inspired by the artist’s fascination with the soundtracks of Italian crime and thriller films from the late 1960s and 1970s, commonly known as giallo. The term derives from the dominant yellow color of the covers of crimenovels that gave rise to the genre.
The artists pay tribute both to this cinematic tradition and to the legacy of the legendary composer-performer collective Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, closely associated with Ennio Morricone – one of the group’s key figures and the author of dozens of soundtracks for giallo films.
The musicians expand on this tradition by proposing a contemporary interpretation of the sonic language characteristic of the 1960s and 1970s and the aesthetics of giallo: full of tension, unease, abrupt contrasts, and unconventional sonic structures.
During the Warsaw concert, three outstanding artists from Berlin’s electronic and improvisational scene will perform: Hanno Leichtmann, improvisation legend Magda Mayas, and electroacoustic outsider Valerio Tricoli. The musicians reinterpret the idea of spontaneous composition, which was the foundation of Nuova Consonanza, combining it with the aesthetics of genre cinema and the radical language of the avant garde.
The project is inspired not only by the tradition of giallo but also by the monumental early-1970s work Dimensioni Sonore – Musiche Per L’Immagine E L’Immaginazione by Ennio Morricone and Bruno Nicolai. The ensemble’s sound is constructed using sampled percussive sounds derived from giallo films (Leichtmann), prepared piano and clavinet (Mayas), and the reel-to-reel tape recorder Revox B77 (Tricoli), which enables real-time sampling and processing of the ensemble’s sound. Their concert becomes a dialogue that combines the sense of mystery and tension characteristic of the giallo genre with the radicalism of the avant-garde.
Performers:
- Hanno Leichtmann – electronics, percussion,
- Magda Mayas – prepared piano, clavinet,
- Valerio Tricoli – Revox B77 reel-to-reel tape recorder.
Duration: approx. 60 minutes.
Other music-film events at the Timeless Film Festival Warsaw 2026:
26 April 2026 (Sunday), 8:00 PM, Luna cinema, 28 Marszałkowska Street. Screening of the contemporary silent film “Silent Trilogy” with live music and foley effects.
27 April 2026 (Monday), 7:00 PM, The Polish National Opera, 1 Theatre Square. Screening of The Saragossa Manuscript with live music.
Co-Organizer
