Today we’d like to introduce you to Francesca Remigi.
Hi Francesca, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I was raised in a musical family in a little village in the north of Italy. I grew up listening to a lot of music at home, especially classical. One day I went to listen to my dad performing with a big band and I got literally taken away by their drummer. It seemed he was having so much fun playing the drums that I realized that’s what I wanted to do! I started playing drums at the age of five with Maestro Stefano Bertoli, and in middle school, I also did five years of classical piano.
In 2014, I started my undergrad at Conservatorio G.Verdi of Milano (performance major), which I graduated from in 2017 after a one year Erasmus+ program in the Netherlands.
In 2020, as soon as I got my Master’s Degree at the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussels, under the guidance of the Belgian drummer Stéphane Galland, I was awarded with a full scholarship to attend the Berklee Global Jazz Institute Master Program, directed by Grammy Award-winning jazz pianist Danilo Pérez.
I spent about three years in the US, mainly living in Boston and then in NY.
Right now, I find myself being on the road a lot, touring and performing with different projects all over the world. I’m also pretty active as a composer and a bandleader! Every year I try to spend some time doing artistic residencies where I get to work on some new music to showcase.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Well, I guess there has been some bumps and accidents along the road! Covid is a great example of that. When the pandemic started, it was pretty challenging for us artists to reinvent new ways of collaborating remotely, not to mention the great financial hardship we had to face due to the cancellation of live events!
But being a woman playing drums has definitely been the trickiest thing for me. When I was five, I remember joining my town brass band and never being able to play during rehearsals, as the other male drummers were always bullying me and shutting me out. It’s been a life of fighting ever since, especially in a deeply patriarchal and misogynistic country like Italy.
Growing up, I honestly never knew I could have made it as a female drummer, cause at the time there were no examples of other women playing drums in Italy, and very few of them in the rest of the world.
In my teens, I joined some rock and metal bands where I was always the only woman and had to put up with very sexist and discriminating talks by the other musicians of the band. On top of that, I’ve always lived with the feeling of not being taken seriously by most of the men involved in the music performance and music education environments.
As a female drummer, I feel I’m tested by local sound engineers every time I’m doing a soundcheck, and daily I witness festival directors’ patronizing and superior behavior while talking to me. I normally manage to gain people’s respect only after they hear me play, but still I get comments like “you play good to be a girl” after the concerts and sometimes they still pay me less than other male bandmates. In our male-dominated environment, I’ve felt many opportunities to perform were not given to me, as male musicians often prefer to hire people from their boy’s clubs.
Sadly, most of the projects I mainly perform with are mines or other women’s. Also in music education, I experienced sexual harassment and very paternalistic behavior by most of my conservatory professors, as well as a lack of faith in me and very little growing opportunities.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I’m a drummer, percussionist, composer and improviser, and I’m also a touring musician and an educator. In my artistic practice, I’ve always conceived music as a tool to process, heal and share personal trauma. The first two records I’ve published as a leader (“Il Labirinto dei Topi” and “The Human Web”) start from my own personal narrative and tackle topics as mental illness, eating disorders and domestic violence on a wider range, bringing these issues to the audience’s attention. Lately, I’ve started combining music with other disciplines more and more, as I feel the communicative impact of interdisciplinary works is much more powerful and immediate to grasp.
From a musical perspective, I’m interested in exploring that fine space between what’s composed and what’s improvised and in creating bridges between different art forms. Besides collaborating with musicians on a daily basis, I’ve worked with actors, dancers and visual artists.
We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
I don’t think I have a favorite childhood memory, but I remember traveling a lot with my parents and my sister as a kid. We used to have a big camping car which we would drive all around Europe by. My favorite trip of all was when we went to Norway: I loved the energy, the nature and the Celtic traditions and stories connected to that place. I remember learning how to fish during that trip. The most incredible moment of all was when we went up to the Preikestolen rock and admired the fjord below us by crawling to the edge of that majestic sheer cliff.
Pricing:
- CDs are about 13$ + shipping on band camp
- Digital CDs cost about 9$
Contact Info:
- Website: https://remigifrancesca.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fraremigi_drums/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Francesca-Remigi/pfbid0JT1GTUZCaSL8EtruyjubfUW86dYkAzsnv2mRsPG6CNw1UzsYsG1p695yn5rjmm92l/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjZhYiuTCxwwZtonTfxebYg/videos
- Other: https://francescaremigi.bandcamp.com
Image Credits
Photo 1-2: Shawn Poynter (Loghaven Artist Residency) photo 3: Musacchio, Ianniello, Pasqualini, Fucilla photo 4: Adriano Bellucci photo 5: Duncographic photo 6: Michele Bordoni photo 7: Marco Floris photo 8: Keep an Eye Award (Bimhuis)
