Un hymne a la vie:
Emmanuelle Sigal Ensemble

Only a few words to prelude this interview: During the last year they played a few times in Bolzano and South Tyrol – maybe you remember them also as one of the singers during the Busk Festival last October in Bozen. They are The Emmanuelle Sigal Ensemble  and they’re proud to have released their first album “Songs from the Underground” the 15th January 2014. Curiously we met up with the lead singer Emmanuelle for an inspirational talk. 

Dear Emmanuelle Sigal Ensemble, will this be the future name of your band, definitely? – Strating with “The Shower Singers” you changed to “Emmanuelle Sigal and band” and finally you are “Emmanuelle Sigal Ensemble” now. How did it happen that you four got together? 

Emmanuelle: First of all, this ensemble started with a close friendship:  Maddalena Prinoth (second voice) was spending long hours to sing with me. This were important moments for me because I have found the first element to start this road… We were singing in “little bars, big beers” with three and a half people listening (thanks to them for listening) and  I just felt that we could grow.
It was a hard job to find the right people, I found good musicians but I felt that we were making intellectual music – for me music has to be felt and not to be learned. After one year of experience and hum self-discipline, I finally found the right constellation for this ensemble. We  developed our own style that came out from free self-expression of each member of the group. Together with Matthias Pötz (guitar) we worked out a lot of melodies and this is the way we got this swing, jazz, gipsy style: text, melody, white nights and the songs took form. Maurizio Riglione (guitar) arrived a bit later and brought a great harmony, support and dynamite.
After this musical change we wanted to express this renaissance also in the name. We changed  the name of the group to Emmanuelle Sigal Ensemble because I (Emmanuelle) decided a few months ago to work out my lyrics and melodies to express something new, instead of making covering and singing in my shower…

Emmanuelle, please introduce us everyone of you in a few words!  

Emmanuelle Sigal: creative, destructive, drama queen. Up and down, but that keeps me alive. (I make good chocolate mousse.)
Matthias Pötz: swing, balance, precise, melodic, testa dura, “I say yes, he says no”. (Trying to grow a Django Reinhardt moustache.)
Maddalena Prinoth: soft, lover, “the magic touch”, trying everything and knowing to do nothing. (And still trying to figure out Emmanuelle’s lyrics.)
Maurizio Riglione: joy, freedom, happiness, movement, orange juice. (Looking for a girl, please call: 3318047769.)

The roles in your band are good allocated/arranged: men at the guitars and the women singing – will there be a role reversal some day?

Two voices and two guitars… well we didn’t make it appositely. The ensemble got build very naturally. Maddalena and I were always singing and Matthias was always swinging his guitar. …then arrived Maurizio and integrated himself very… We are all playing guitar and singing but let’s say that we have chosen to do what we really know and like.

For my ears your music sounds easygoing, loosey-goosey, a kind of laid-back style. It seems the sound emerges from your mouthes and instruments in a very easy way, isn’t it? Or is it hard work? How would you describe your  music?  

Well our music sounds easy going, but it doesn’t mean  that we are not working hard for it… We are meeting everyday and having a kind of “outsider” life, with no routine, no rules, no contracts; all this is risky ’cause we never know if we are going somewhere. But I think it’s stronger than us and this state of mind gives us creativity, that you can find everywhere if you know to observe… This is the passion that we like to share and I think our music – or music in general – is a state of mind, a “hymne a la vie”.

Which kind of audience do you have? Which kind of audience do you prefer?

Right now we are exploring everything in every place. We recorded our CD “Songs from the underground” so people can know us better. We are not looking to be loved by everyone, that wouldn’t make sense. We don’t have any nation or age for our public and that’s the freedom that comes out from our sound.

What are your songs about? 

The songs I write are usually touching the same subjects: love, life, death, desperation, society, dreams. “Songs from the underground”, the CD we have freshly recorded, is describing different situations. On one hand “Refugee”, “My ass between two chairs”, “Blues train”, “The road to the moon” are about the hesitation, difficulties, regrets. About the moments in those you really feel lost with yourself and there is no way to find a way; so you just write a song about… On the other hand “Keep on moving”, “Black cats, dry bread”, “La vie de bohème”, “Deep cold sea” are softer  and pushing to keep on dreaming and living. On the third hand they have no sense at all, like “One for my heart, four for his rum”. I write the text, put a melody and then usually work it out with Matthias. The words can be felt only with the right melody on.

What’s the best thing of staying, singing and playing in front of an audience?

When somebody is touched by our music in any kind of way. I mean, not as admiration but more as the feeling that you are not the only one who gets connected to this emotions – the sad or the happy ones. It’s always a pleasure if somebody is asking us to play one more song  – and in the end we find ourselves playing for one more hour.

What will we expect from the Album presentation?

For us it’s a very big step and pleasure to present our Orchestra. During the concert we will present our CD but also share the roots of our style to show how we got into it. We hope to see you all there! Merci!