Drummer, composer and conductor Andrea Centazzo has over the years developed his own artistic expression between avant-garde, experimental, jazz and new media paths
In 1974 he recorded his first album titled Ictus and the following year the albums Fragmentos with the trio formed with Maurizio Giammarco and Bruno Tommaso, in which the drummer uses a wide paraphernalia of conventional and unconventional percussion, and Davanti e Oltre la Soglia, in a duo with Giammarco alone and the presence in one track of Alvin Curran, among the first recording works of the jazz-ambient genre in Italy
In the same period, together with Bruno Tommaso and Gianni Bedori, he played in Giorgio Gaslini’s quartet
In 1976 he founded the record label Ictus Records, with which he released several record works, including Clangs with free and avant-garde saxophonist Steve Lacy. In 1979 he formed the Mitteleuropean Orchestra with musicians such as Gianluigi Trovesi, Franz Koglmann, Roberto Ottaviano, Enrico Rava, Roberto Mannuzzi and others
Since the 1980s, he has also devoted himself to multimedia projects and compositions for plays, film scores, and scores for orchestral ensembles
During his career he has collaborated with various instrumentalists from a variety of musical backgrounds-John Zorn, Albert Mangelsdorff, Evan Parker, Giancarlo Schiaffini, Tom Cosa, Fred Frith, Sylvano Bussotti, Toshinori Kondō, Don Cherry, Pierre Favre, and others
Essential discography: Ictus (1974 – PDU), Maurizio Giammarco – Andrea Centazzo – In Front and Beyond Threshold (1975 – RCA), Fragmentos (1975 – PDU), Steve Lacy/Andrea Centazzo – Clangs (1976 – Ictus Records), Environment For Sextet (1979 – Ictus Records), Andrea Centazzo Mittleuropea – Live (2002 – New Tone Records)
