Projects

Saxophone & Organ

Saxophonist Claudia Tesorino has been performing in duos with organ since 1992, appearing in national and international venues. She is the first and only saxophonist who has played in this instrumental combination in the Berlin Cathedral.

“Claudia Tesorino is the only saxophonist who copes well with the low tuning of the Sauer organ in the Berlin Cathedral. Her exuberant energy, her expressive qualities and precise intonation, along with her sense of time and space, make her playing into a gift: moments of joy for musicians and listeners alike,” says Berliner Dom organist Prof. Andreas Sieling.

Claudia Tesorino’s repertoire ranges from Bach, Telemann, Fauré, Hakim, Bédard, Piazzolla, and Vasks to works written for her and improvisations.

She has released three saxophone and organ CDs, which are available on itunes and spotify, as well as directly from the artist, and she has performed in duo with organ in Catedral de Barcelona, Peterskirche Basel, Philharmonie Essen, Apostel-Paulus-Kirche Berlin, Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche Berlin, Pfarrei Mariä Himmelfahrt Deggendorf,  Altenberger Dom, Berliner Dom, Ludwigskirche Darmstadt, Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul Montréal/CAN, Bach Festival Montréal/CAN, Orgue et Couleurs Montréal/CAN, Festival Organistico Internazionale San Leonardo in Cerreto Guidi/I, Böblinger Orgelfrühling, Internationale Orgelkonzerte Saarbrücken, Istituto San Giuseppe De Merode Roma/I, and the Westminster Presbyterian Church Buffalo/USA, among others.

For more duo videos with organ click here: youtube

Tesorino Quartet

In “Before & After” saxophonist Claudia Tesorino tells the story of a traumatic event she experienced in 2019 and how it turned her life upside down.

Half a year after this personal crisis, as the pandemic forced the world to come to a standstill, Tesorino took time to recover – and at the same time, she began to develop a new awareness of her creative energies. In the past two years, her creativity has flourished, stimulating a rich variety of new ideas and passionate interests. Now the German-Canadian musician has woven all of these influences into her current program, “Before & After.”

Tesorino has made a name for herself with her improvisational projects. In “Before & After,” she goes a step further, connecting free improvisation with her own compositions. She draws her inspiration from many varieties of music that have been important for her thus far, bringing together influences from jazz, world music, and classical and experimental music.

  • Claudia Tesorino – concept, composition, soprano and tenor saxophone, violin, piano, bansuri
  • Nishad Pandey – electric guitar
  • Carmelo Leotta – double bass
  • Fabian Habicht – drums and percussion

 The “Before & After” CD is available here:  Bandcamp

My tribute to the saxophone

For this band project, Claudia Tesorino has put together a program made up of pieces that fascinate her, by composers and artists who inspire her. She picks from a wide range of classical saxophone pieces, plus jazz standards, Latin and pop hits, world music, and film music.

The focus of this program is always the saxophone and its enormous versatility. At one moment, the soprano sax is transformed into a Sicilian wooden flute, the zufoletto; then the sound of the alto saxophone transports us to the Roaring Twenties and their optimistic outlook. With the tone varying from a sharp pop sound to smooth or funky, the saxophone sings, weeps, tells stories, pokes fun, murmurs, and seduces.

A first-rate band with piano, guitar, bass, and percussion joins Claudia Tesorino and her polygot saxophone family on the stage. Music from Darius Milhaud, Dexter Gordon, Barbara Thompson, Rudy Wiedoeft, Grover Washington, Jr., Keith Jarrett, Karl Jenkins, the Isley Brothers, Jay Beckenstein, and others guarantees an exciting listening experience.

Saxophone Solo

Claudia Tesorino displays her keen sense of time and space in her solo improvisations. She loves to pick up interesting noises and sounds and pass them on to the listeners with her “sonic signature.” Everything is permitted OR allowed, everything is music, meaning that she is not afraid to mix lyrical melodies with contemporary playing techniques or groovy patterns. The search for new paths and sounds arises in a completely natural way.

Her intuition and creativity guide her and enable her to paint musical pictures that cannot be assigned to any genre, while her signature full tone and accurate intonation are heard throughout. Claudia Tesorino lets the echoes of classical, contemporary, jazz, and world music be heard in her improvisations.

Saxophone & Piano

In her duo program for saxophone and piano, Claudia Tesorino plays her favorite pieces of original music for this instrumental combination. These include a wide range of compositions by Paul Creston, Otmar Mácha, Paul Ben-Haim, Jeanine Rueff, Paule Maurice, and Pedro Itturalde, among others, as well as works written for her by Matthieu Lussier and Derek Healey.

In addition, she likes to include arrangements of pieces by Leonard Bernstein, Astor Piazzolla, Edvard Grieg, and Edward Elgar in her concert programs. Claudia makes this choice not because of a lack of original repertoire, but rather because these arrangements highlight the timbre and expressiveness of the saxophone and round out the programs perfectly. She finds playing in a duo with piano to be a special musical experience, since it allows for a subtle and intimate interplay between saxophone and piano. And, by the way, the piano is also Claudia’s second-favorite instrument!

 

Saxophone & Choir

The saxophone is often described as the instrument with the quality closest to the human voice. This means that it’s a natural step for Claudia Tesorino to interact musically with choirs. Her repertoire includes “Being Peace,” the expressive and virtuosic composition in three movements by her American fellow student Russell Peterson, with texts by Thich Nhat Hanh, as well as the Motets, op. 164 by Derek Healey, a work composed for Claudia Tesorino. Through improvisations on choral works, such as those by Leonard Lechner and Karl Jenkins, Claudia Tesorino gives the saxophone and choral concerts a very personal touch, allowing the audience to experience these works in a new way.

Tesorino Jazz Group

Claudia Tesorino’s Jazz Group sometimes plays soft and airy Brazilian bossa nova, sometimes bebop-groovy jazz and swing standards or sensuous and expressive jazz ballads. The extraordinary mixture of classical influences, world music, jazz, and pop, combined with Claudia Tesorino’s sensitive and full saxophone tone, makes you want to listen.
The Tesorino Jazz Group has appeared at a variety of large and small events, including at the House of Representatives and the Red Town Hall in Berlin, the Representation of the State of Baden-Württemberg to the Federal Government, the Working Group for Child and Youth Welfare, the Goethe-Institut, and others. Depending on the occasion, the musicians play background music or present a unique program item at the event.The instrumental line-up can be varied:

  • Saxophone and accordion
  • Saxophone and piano/electric piano or guitar
  • Saxophone, piano/guitar, and bass
  • Saxophone, piano/guitar, bass, and drums

Bansuri & Lyre

Claudia Tesorino also performs on Indian bamboo flute, the  bansuri, for example in duo with Greek musician Theodoros Koumartzis on ancient Greek lyre.