Artchipel Orchestra
Artchipel Orchestra is an evolving project led by drummer, composer, and conductor Ferdinando Faraò. The Artchipel experiment has produced excellent results, appreciated both by audiences and critics, so much so that in the Top Jazz poll— the annual referendum of Italian critics organized by the magazine Musica Jazz— it was voted “Best Ensemble of the Year” in 2012, 2017, 2022, and 2025, and ranked second in the same category in 2014 and 2024.
Starting from a repertoire of original pieces, the band moved on to its own arrangements of compositions written in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s by Mike Westbrook, Alan Gowen, Fred Frith, and Dave Stewart. In the autumn of 2012, the orchestra’s first CD was released, Never Odd or Even, featuring guest musician Phil Miller and liner notes by Jonathan Coe, in which one can read, among other things: “I have always thought that the most radical and interesting aspect of that music was its disregard for dividing lines: it was experimental yet melodic; it captured both the mind and the body; it was complex yet also friendly and accessible (...); at times it seemed like classical music played by a pop group; at others, jazz performed by a chamber ensemble. The musicians who made it were brilliant composers and improvisers, first-rate players, full of talent and yet (...) absolutely modest and down-to-earth.” And further: “I take enormous pleasure in listening again to those compositions by Gowen, in performances full of life and energy. And it is equally magnificent to hear new interpretations of Dave Stewart’s majestic Tenebres Roads and Fred Frith’s Moeris Dancing (...). Not to mention Mike Westbrook’s catchy Original Peter (...). And to crown it all, a beautiful original composition by Faraò, Big Orange, a moving tribute to Pip Pyle, who died in 2006 after having been a key presence and inspiration for so many of those groups.”
The second Artchipel CD, released in 2014 as an insert with the monthly magazine Musica Jazz (which on that occasion achieved one of its highest sales records in recent years), is entirely devoted to big band arrangements of compositions written by Hugh Hopper and Robert Wyatt for the Soft Machine. Reviewing the album, a major figure in international jazz criticism such as Richard Williams wrote: “Faraò and his fellow arranger, Beppe Barbera, aren’t making carbon copies of the originals here. They’re devising revisions that bring unusual resources to bear on the material, exposing facets of beauty that we might not have imagined to be present, even in embryo.” Michael King added: “Those old tunes have been given a new life, and they sound utterly fresh and wonderful again. A great many sublime touches have been added, something I don’t think anyone else has done to date. Such a beautiful listening experience (...). To my ears this is the best version of this music. (...) you have successfully realized the dormant potential within the original music, creating music that honours its creators by raising it to a level of great sophistication, and placing it in a beautifully expansive musical rainbow.”
In 2015–2016, Artchipel Orchestra focused on arranging compositions by the British musician Lindsay Cooper. To perform and record them live, it enlisted drummer Chris Cutler, a long-time collaborator of Cooper herself.
Artchipel Orchestra has performed at the most important national jazz festivals and has been joined by internationally renowned guests such as Keith Tippett, Julie Tippetts, Karl Berger, Ingrid Sertso, Mike and Kate Westbrook, Pete Whyman, Chris Cutler, Adam Rudolph, Cyro Baptista, and Jonathan Coe.
