Hugh’s Room: LEMA by Paolo Angelli

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Anyone who has attended a solo performance by the Sardinian musician Paolo Angeli – often presented as a single-act piece – knows they are witnessing a Homeric musical journey. It is a voyage of departures and arrivals, where composition and improvisation weave a narrative filled with haunting melodies and concrete sounds that evoke soundscapes ranging from post-industrial to those deeply connected to nature.

At the heart of the concert is the prepared Sardinian guitar, conceived by Paolo Angeli between 1993 and 1996 and perfected over 30 years through three prototypes. This orchestra-instrument, a hybrid between a baritone guitar, a cello, and a drum set, currently features 25 strings, piano-like hammers, propellers for creating drone sounds, movable bridges, and various attachments—evoking the sounds of a harp, electric kalimbas, kora, and sitar. It is played using plucking, a bow, and percussive techniques.

Thanks to his innovative approach – ranging from avant-rock walls of sound, desert-like adagios, flamenco compás, Middle Eastern phrasings, and echoes of minimalism – Paolo Angeli has forged a hybrid musical poetics that has allowed him to authoritatively renew the language of contemporary guitar playing. Building upon this instrumental foundation, the musician reaches moments of deep pathos with melismatic vocal passages, an expression of Sardinia’s most ancient traditions.

The focus of the performance will be LEMA, the musician’s latest work, released on May 9, 2025.

Lema (Spanish for motto or slogan) is a direct synthesis, capable of encompassing the complexity of a musical thought free from genre boundaries, in which Paolo Angeli develops thirty years of coexistence with the prepared Sardinian guitar.

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Hugh’s Room: LEMA by Paolo Angelli

Date/Time
Wednesday, June 3, 2026
8:00 pm - 10:30 pm

Location
Hugh's Room
296 Broadview Ave
Toronto, Ontario
Canada, M4M 2G7

Price
$30-45

Phone
647-347-4769

Website
https://hughsroomlive.com/on-stage/?page_number=2

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