At first, who is Hexperos?
Hexperos is an Italian duo founded in 2004 by Alessandra Santovito (soprano voice, flute) and Francesco Forgione ( previously double bass player, now cello, bardic harp, viola da gamba, percussion instruments, bouzouky, baglama saz, hammer dulcimer player).

Their lineup consists of various talented musicians, in our last album we can see the violinists Domenico Mancini and Alessandro Pensa, the percussion instrument player Francesco Savoretti, Paolo Di Nicola at the uilleann pipes, Simone Ranieri at the acustic guitar, the Stella Maris Children's choir directed by Paola Stivaletta, Michele Cinquina at the Tiorba.

Their albums often feature ancient instruments such as medieval flute, hammer dulcimer and Appalachian dulcimer played by Alessandra and Francesco.

Thanks to her countless experiences, Alessandra can sing in various ways, so that her voice, like their music and her lyrics, ranges from the Mediterranean style to the north European one, from the ancient genre to the modern one. Much importance is given to the lyrics of the songs and often you can find significant literature quotes or passages transposed into music.

Francesco is in charge of recording and mixing each song too: he takes care of every step during the realization of Hexperos's albums. His love for ancient and modern music is mirrored in his compositions and arrangements.

The name Hexperos comes from Hesperides and Hesperos, which is the name of the first star that appears at twilight. This is also the favourite star of the goddess of love, Aphrodite. The Hesperides are nymphs who take care of a tree with golden apples and they sing with sweet voices.

In 2007, Hexperos's first full album comes out, entitled The Garden of the Hesperides, for the independent Portuguese label Equilibrium Music. This garden represents Hexperos's musical world, a place where you can collect many of the influences from which the songs originate, such as their passion for contemporary music; for composers like James Newton Howard, Hans Zimmer, James Horner, Philip Glass, Michael Nyman; for classical music, particularly for baroque and for ethnic music, especially Celtic, Spanish and African, for this reason in this album there are also two personal interpretations of Ave Maria by Giulio Caccini and "Nana", one of the Siete Canciones Españolas by Manuel de Falla.

Their second album, entitled The Veil of the Queen Mab, is published in September 2010. The title of this new album comes from El velo de la reina Mab by the Nicaraguan writer and poet Rubén Darío (1867–1916).

A short tale from the collection Azul whose immense lyricism, inspired by melancholia and fairy tales, has brought fame to Dario's verses, in which we find typical South American magical realism, ancient mythology and pure fantasy.

Queen Mab is quoted by many international artists of different art fields; for example, many will remember Shakespeare mentioning her, through the mouth of Mercutio, in Romeo and Juliet, or referring to her myth in A Midsummer

Night's Dream.

The Garden of the Hesperides and The Veil of the Queen Mab present different characteristics. The first one is more minimalist, while the second is richer in orchestration. Both of them received great critical and public success worldwide.

Their last album entitled "Lost in the Great Sea" reflects Hexperos's new Celtic sound and their fascination for the ancient past, Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Christina Rossetti, and the great impact that women and their imaginary travels have made in the history of art.



How is born Hexperos?
Alessandra:

I had a previous project named Gothica, which had great success in the 90s among lovers of obscure atmospheres. I wrote the most of music and all the lyrics for both of Gothica's albums entitled Night Thoughts and The Cliff of Suicide. In that project I reflected all my passion for gothic literature and art, however at a certain point I began to feel the necessity of a new project were I could reveal my love also for other kind of arts and sonorities. When I met Francesco Forgione, I felt that we could work at it together, since he too loved different kinds of music, from metal to classical music and above all Celtic and medieval music, we have many music tastes in common.

In 2004, with the song entitled The Warm Whisper of the Wind, the band is officially born. This first song was published in a compilation entitled Flowers Made of Snow by the Swedish label C.M.I. the same label of my previous Gothica project.



You have already release three albums
Yes, we prefer not to rush and take our times between each album, but years have passed and here we are with three albums, a lot of collaborations and singles and an album with our medieval side project named Stella Nova.

Tell us about your new album?
In this album, Hexperos surprises listeners with a new sound, mixing atmospheric and ethereal songs, heavenly voices, neo-classicism, neo-folk and medieval elements and more Celtic style than ever before. Passionate about the ancient past, Pre-Raphaelitism, and the great impact that women and their imaginary travels have made in the history of art, we would like to take listeners on a journey through stories about real travellers and dreamers, ancient times, lovers, difficulties and mental images which induce sublime romanticism.

Once again, we have put poetry by Christina Georgina Rossetti and Dante Gabriel Rossetti to music, paying homage to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, an artistic movement started by Dante Gabriel Rossetti in 1848. The Rossetti family of artists was originally from Vasto, Italy, also the birthplace of me and Francesco and we feel strongly about keeping our heritage alive.

Lost in the Great Sea is a collection of mesmerizing sounds as ancient instruments are played by brilliant modern musicians.



"Lost in the Great Sea" sound very different compared your two first release, why that choice?

We really love Celtic music and this time we wanted to show it with a very personal touch. Furthermore, we met this extraordinary percussion instrument player, Francesco Savoretti, who added an important touch to the band. As a matter of fact, we have improved our live shows too and what we love most is that each live is special, we love to add something different each time, to improvise.

Well, it seems that there's two "permanent" members, Alessandra and Francesco; But you are using a lot of instruments, so many musicians play in your albums, how do you choose them?

They are talented musicians that fate put on our roads, musicians with which we collaborated in other occasions and who have our same tastes, not everybody lives near us, but the live lineup is composed of members who live not too far from our home city.

Who writes the music and lyric?
I write all the lyrics, except when we use quotations, and the melodic lines, sometimes I help in the arrangements, the most of the music is written by Francesco.

You are registered on our website as a "Atmospheric gothic metal" Do you agree with that belonging?
Well, to tell the truth we don’t think to be a metal band even if we have roots in common.



Do you believe that you have your place on Spirit of Metal cos of your kind of music?....
Because of my experience, I’m sure that most of the people who listen to metal love other kinds of music too and in particular baroque music, atmospheric music and ethnic music, so we’re sure we have a place in most of the hearts of metal listeners.



Although many metal head enjoy it, is that a surprise for you?
It’s not a surprise because I listened to metal too and I had and still have many friends who enjoy both genres, there are also people who listen only to metal and stop, but maybe they are the youngest or the more closed minded.



You released a video "Autumnus" What do you want to tell us with that video?
This video was born thanks to the collaboration with a couple of friend film makers. We wanted to recreate an autumnal atmospheres to reflect a couple of tracks dedicated to autumn and contained in the album, one of them with Black’s lyric. Above all we wanted to show our roots, we shoot the video in our land, in Abruzzo in Italy, we belong to this scenery, this is an ancestral link which flows in our veins and call us from deep inside. Our region is magical, we have sea, mountains, woods, old castles, villages and churches …



Are you considering yourselves as a classical music?
We are musicians that comes from the classical field because we have studied in conservatoires, but we don’t feel at all classical musicians, we feel more like artists who want to express their inner world.



Grazie Alessandra

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interview réalisée par xavier74

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