The choir
Canone Inverso is an association of people who share a passion for music and singing, looking beyond the sexual orientation of each one. Our main activity is to form a choir that is a musical representation of the LGBT * (Lesbo, Gay, Bisex, Trans, Queer, Intersex) and Heterosexual community together and we wish to spread the love for music, in particular the choral one, also contributing in this way to break down social and cultural stereotypes unfortunately still present in our society.
Curriculum vitae of the choir
The choir was born in the spring of 2013 in Padua as a project within the Circolo Arcigay Tralaltra, but soon, the success achieved and the need for organizational autonomy led Canone Inverso to form an association in January 2014. Our name: “Canone inverso” is inspired by a 2000 film directed by Ricky Tognazzi and based on the 1996 novel of the same name by Paolo Maurensig. An inverse canon is also a musical composition with a particular contrapuntal structure, in which the same melody, played simultaneously from beginning to end and from end to beginning, harmonizes and gives rise to a more interesting composition that draws richness and complexity from its same structure. From this concept arises a parallel which, in the very name of our choral formation, wants to pay homage to people in their many facets and relationships, therefore in this context it takes on a more captivating and at the same time provocative meaning. Since 2015 our choir has been directed by Maestro David Wilkes Benini and we offer a repertoire of contemporary and pop music. We range from Madonna to Joni Mitchell up to current songs such as Let It Go from the film Frozen or Born This Way by Lady Gaga. The association in recent years has grown more and more making itself more visible both locally and internationally, we have performed on various occasions both in the sector and not to carry on our message of inclusion and equality: in 2016 we participated in a festival of “mountain” choirs in Gradisca D’Isonzo, in 2017 we went abroad for the first time for a concert on the occasion of the Brussels Pride, in 2018 we participated in the organization of the Padova Pride and currently we are the only Italian choir member of the LGBT table set up by the Department of Equal Opportunities of the Council of Ministers.
David Wilkes Benini loves to sing. He sings since he was a child, any music and sound, and he sings almost always. Fascinated and attracted from an early age by noises and sounds, and how they tell stories, he cultivates this passion by transferring it to the voice in a natural and experiential / experimental way. The passion for the voice in its myriad of manifestations and modalities has led him to study and practice almost every kind of non-classical vocality (a technique which he nevertheless studied briefly to get to know it). His vocal career was basically self-taught until he was 20, then he enrolled in A. Bacchia’s singing school, becoming his assistant after just over a year. David loves composing and arranging music, and this passion led him to study Composition at the Conservatory (Lazzoni, Zanolini, Facchinetti, Tanzini, Ugoletti), where he also studied Conducting (Serembe, Faldi, Parisi), and Conducting di Coro (Scibilia), and over the years he has studied organ music, Gregorian chant, electronic music, improvisation methodology, organology, orchestration, analysis of contemporary music, aesthetics (Manca, Bezza, Villa). In the jazz / modern field he studied arrangement, composition, and collective improvisation (Schiaffini, Villa, Bellon, Tommaso, Gazzani). David has always been thrilled with combinations of instruments and sounds, and his passion for music as such drives him to pursue multiple genres and styles. He is also fascinated by how music is a channel of expression of human nature beyond rational associations, and he cultivates this fascination by looking for ways of expression (vocal and musical) that are True and Intimate with the soul of other Humans. To work on his Creativity, and on the Truth, both as a vocalist and as a composer, he studied with De Fazio “Poetic Theater”, Zen, how to analyze a text to give body to the Life it expresses, and in general how to open up to the Magic of Creative act without deciding, and letting Life manifest itself. David loves the human soul, and every expression of it. He is in love with life, and following this feeling he studied other areas of art (figurative and sculptural), and artistic currents of different cultures. In his always curious journey, he also attended courses in psychology, psychoanalysis (Resnik, 3 years), Neuro-Emotional Integration (NEI, 4 years), Family Constellations, sociology, pedagogy. He has composed jazz, rock, contemporary, classical, chamber ensemble, solo piano, mixed ensembles, big-bands, conducting his compositions in concert, as well as electronic and concrete music. As a soloist, he is equally at ease musically and vocally in any genre (except opera singing), from jazz (any style) to rock / pop to contemporary. He has taught Voice and Singing since 1992 in schools in Milan, Verona, Padua and Feltre, and since 1995 he has held specialization courses and seminars for vocal groups. From 1996 to 2001 he collaborated in the “International Summer Stages of Spazio Musica – Orvieto”, in ’96 -’97 as a teacher of “Ear-training / Improvisation” in the Jazz Specialization courses, and from 1997 as a teacher in the “Fainomènon – Laboratory” Workshop on Vocal Creativity ”, with which he prepared and presented various musical theater and improvisation shows in Verona, Orvieto, and Milan. From 1998 to 2001 he conducted a choir of 30 people in a modern sacred repertoire, complementarily holding a training course in choir conducting. Since 1998 he has held seminars and courses in Collective Improvisation and Creativity for musicians and actors. Since 2008 he has held seminars on “Music & Aesthetics”. In 2007-8 he directed the big band of the “Pollini” Conservatory of Padua under the artistic direction of the founder Montagna. Since 2008 he has been director of the big band “Padova Jam Orchestra”. David teaches how to do beautiful things regardless of the genre or style one practices. Bilingual from birth, he has worked as an interpreter in seminars held by Clayton, Stoloff, Gould, Waldron, Harris, New York Voices and De Fazio, and can teach in Italian or English. David plays three instruments, in addition to his voice: piano (classical and jazz studies); trumpet, which he studied and played in the main and big band of middle school in S. Antonio, Texas, where he lived; Stick, who started playing moved by the desire to occupy a role other than that of a soloist. He graduated with full marks in the Jazz Courses at the “Venezze” Conservatory of Rovigo with a three-year thesis on “Unconscious Communication in Musical Expression”, and he graduated with 110 cum laude in “Jazz Music Disciplines e Moderne ”at the same Conservatory with the thesis“ The Expressive Need and the Evolution of Téchne: Knowing-Doing as Necessity for Voler-Saying ”.
