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Carlo Domeniconi playing during a photo shoot in Berlin, June 2009. |
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Carlo Domeniconi
publicity for concerts |
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Carlo Domeniconi performs his guitar compositions on large stages at concerts and festivals worldwide, but was seldom to be seen in Berlin, where he has lived for many years. In 2009 he began a series of smaller, more intimate concerts for friends, colleagues, students and fans in and around Berlin, at a variety of venues, including churches and art galleries. Concerts often feature guest appearances by other instrumentalists and singers. He also gives workshops and classes for young guitarists.
Carlo has been described as the "Grenzgänger der klassischen Gitarre" (literally, border-crosser of the classical guitar), mainly because many of his works synthesize elements of western classical music with influences from the formal and informal (folk) music of a variety of cultures (Italian, Turkish, Indian, Brazilian, Argentinian, Andean, Russian, Welsh ...), as well as several other genres, including jazz, rock and bossa nova. |
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Carlo Domeniconi's official website:
www.carlo-domeniconi.com
Concerts organized by Birgit Hering:
www.birgithering.de (in German)
An article about the concerts:
The Cheshire Cat Blog, Feb 2014 |
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Ursa Major Design designs the publicity material for these events, which include posters, postcards and e-flyers in various formats.
The first series of posters (2009-2010) used photos of Carlo taken during an informal photo session in Kreuzberg, Berlin in May 2009. He played his favourite instrument, a guitar made by Luigi Mozzoni in 1938. |
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design and photography: © David John |
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Poster design for Carlo Domeniconi studio concerts, Berlin, 2009. |
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Carlo Domeniconi guitar series postcard design, March-June 2013.
A special edition poster version was produced for a concert in July. |
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Carlo Domeniconi
The guitar series postcards 2013-2014 |
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For a series of postcards and posters for Carlo Domeniconi solo concerts in Berlin in 2103-2014, I used a photo of Carlo's Luigi Mozzoni guitar. The visual concept was simple: the guitar itself as the vehicle by which the listener is tranported on magical journeys of imagination by Carlo's music.
The background landscape photos were taken on physical journeys: the first is the Aegean coast near Aristotle's home town of Stageira, northern Greece; the second is from an aeroplane flying over the Balkans.
After using the landscape backgrounds for several concerts, for the final design in the series I designed a more abstract background, partly to distinguish it from the previous postcards which were still in circulation.
The postcard is a particularly good publicity medium in a city like Berlin. Posters require a lot of time and energy to distribute, and they quickly disappear beneath newer ephemera. City dwellers are continually bombarded by advertising images everywhere they go, and quickly become immured to them. Even if your poster is noticed, the interested passer-by has to make the conscious effort to remember or copy the information displayed (date, time, venue of an event, internet link), even in the age of smartphones and QR codes. Postcards, on the other hand, are eminently portable, and can be sent or handed to people directly, or displayed in shops, restaurants, cafes, libraries, schools, etc., where members of the public can slip one in a pocket or bag for later reference. Some people even collect them. |
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design and photography: © David John |
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Carlo Domeniconi guitar series postcard design, September-December 2013.
A special edition poster version was produced for a concert in November. |
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Carlo Domeniconi guitar series postcard design, March-June 2014. |
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Poster design for Carlo Domeniconi's "Alle Jahre wieder" concert, 2013. |
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Carlo Domeniconi
... Alle Jahre wieder the looooong February concerts |
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Carlo Domeniconi's annual, long, February concerts in Berlin have become something of a tradition over the years. The popular German phrase "Alle Jahre wieder" (literally, every year again) has several connotations, but is often used to refer to annual meetings of friends or families at events such as Christmas, New Year or birthdays, and it is no coincidence that these concerts take place around Carlo's own birthday. In a festive atmosphere several guest musicians and performers gather to provide an evening of extraordinary entertainment.
When it comes to imagery, Carlo has his own particular predilictions, and often gives me an drawing or photo he has made himself to be used in a design (as in the case of the postcard for 12 Preludes for mandolin). This time he sent me a photo, shadow and all, he had taken with his mobile phone of a score which happened to be on his notestand as he was contemplating the design for the 2013 concert. Very contemporary, very spontaneous, very Carlo. And who am I to complain? After all, it was his party.
The challenge was to employ the photographic background so that the mass of text remained clear and legible from a distance, even on a gloomy evening on a Berlin street.
The poster designs for 2013 and 2014, like other posters I have recently designed, included a QR code linked to online information about the events. This did not produce much response: it seems that the kind of people who are interested in this kind of event are not the kind of people who have yet accustomed themselves to using this kind of technology. Time will tell if this changes. |
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design: © David John
photo: © Carlo Domeniconi |
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Poster design for Carlo Domeniconi's "Alle Jahre wieder" concert, 2014. |
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Poster design for Carlo Domeniconi solo concerts, 2015. |
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Carlo Domeniconi
concert posters and postcards 2015 |
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For the 2015 posters and postcards for Carlo Domeniconi's solo concerts in and around Berlin, we switched back to a more direct, close-up image of Carlo playing guitar. The photo is a frame of a video made in a recording studio by Marcus Waibel, the producer of Carlo's Selected Works CD series.
As a photographer and designer I have an aversion to out-of-focus shots, but have to admit that such things are a matter of taste and context. In any event, it received the approval of many.
The poster was to cover the entire 2015 (and perhaps beyond), and since the concert schedule for the whole year had not been fixed at time of printing, a blank area was left at the bottom so that labels could be applied to announce specific concerts. An old tried-and-tested trick of designers and event organizers.
By the end of Summer 2015 the schedule for Autumn-Winter had been nailed down, and we could produce a postcard with fixed dates and venues.
As usual, the design was redeployed for a number of special paper and electronic flyers. |
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design: © David John
photo: © Marcus Waibel |
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Postcard design for Carlo Domeniconi solo concerts, September-December 2015. |
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Poster design for Internationale Sommerakademie 2015. |
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Internationale Sommerakademie
poster for a series of guitar concerts |
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The Internationale Sommerakademie (International Summer Academy) has attracted young students of the classical guitar to the village of Greiffenberg, near Berlin, every summer since 2008. The academy is organized by the local community. Carlo Domeniconi and other seasoned guitarists, including Nora Buschmann and Ricardo Moyano, give practical tutorials and workshops (they are too modest to name them masterclasses).
During the week-long academy, free public concerts of performances by students and maestros are held in the churches of local villages. A summer idyll with strings.
The visual design of the poster, which contains a mass of text information, has to be kept simple and low key. Once again, the instantly recognizable form of the guitar does most of the work. |
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illustration and poster design: © David John |
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Design for Carlo Domeniconi's Meeting with Music concerts, 2015. |
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Carlo Domeniconi
Meeting with Music, 2015 - 2016 |
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Carlo Domeniconi's guitar improvisations are often sublime. Some of his concerts consist solely of improvisations, a few of them have been recorded, and he has even attempted to write scores for a number of these complex pieces. His most famous work Koyunbaba began life as an improvisation he played in a small Turkish village in 1984.
Improvisation technique, involving a range of skills and sensibilities, is something many guitarists are keen to develop. In October 2015 Carlo held his first Meeting with Music improvisation workshop, after which he and the other participants gave a concert to demonstrate the results. Further workshops and concerts are planned for 2016.
The design for the concert poster is a drawing of an imaginary guitar rosette as a mandala. The message is flow, rhythm, time. Originally, I wanted to work the elements into a realistic image, with the textures of materials (mother of pearl and exotic wood) used by guitar-makers, and plays of light and shadow. Unfortunately, such work takes considerable time, for which the schedule and budget did not allow. Still, one hopes that the image as is remains arresting. |
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Concerts organized by Birgit Hering:
www.birgithering.de (in German) |
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illustration and poster design: © David John |
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Poster design for a guitar concert by Carlo Domeniconi and Silvia Ocougne, 2015. |
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Carlo Domeniconi and Silvia Ocougne
poster for a guitar concert |
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illustration and poster design: © David John |
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Carlo Domeniconi concert poster design, February 2016. |
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Carlo Domeniconi
concert posters 2016 |
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design and photography: © David John
Photo of Carlo Domeniconi and Pavel Steidl in Prague: © Birgit Hering |
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Pavel Steidl and Carlo Domeniconi concert poster design, March 2016. |
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Poster design for Carlo Domeniconi solo concerts May - August 2016. |
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Postcard design for Gespräche zur Musik, Carlo Domeniconi concerts, September-December 2016. |
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Postcard design for Gespräche zur Musik, Carlo Domeniconi concert series, January-June 2017.
More or less the same in green. |
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Poster for Februarkonzerte 2017, Carlo Domeniconi concerts, February 2017. |
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Poster for FESTIVAL 2018, Carlo Domeniconi concerts, March 2018. |
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Poster for BACH ~ fluss concert with Kanahi Yamashita and Carlo Domeniconi, May 2018. |
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