christian ferlaino is an italian-born improviser, composer and musicologist. he plays alto and baritone saxophone, as well as surdulina bagpipe.
he plays contemporary jazz, free improvisation and calabrian traditional music. he writes for and performs with the amsterdam-based ensembles new dog, solaris saxophone quartet, haffah and antigone’s choice. he also writes for and performs with italian ensembles such as comanda barabba and tranepainting. recently he has engaged a research in the use of musical elements from calabrian music into his own improvisational and compositional practice. his solo “bad habits” is the first published work entirely centred on this research.
he performed with musicians such as michael moore, tristan honsinger, wilbert de jode, fabrizio puglisi, mauro ottolini, nicola guazzaloca, thollem macdonas, eric boeren, anne la berge, toby delius, han bennink, joost buis, yedo gibson, kaja draksler, renato ferreira, onno govaert, john dikeman, nicolas chientaroli.
in may 2015, he performed with anthony braxton’s sonic genome at torino jazz festival. he collaborated with the dutch composer cornelis de bondt, and took part to the atelier ensemble.
as a musicologist, he is mainly involved in ethnomusicological research on calabria, in southern italy. his book la musica da danza nell’area di influenza della madonna di conflenti was published by rubbettino in 2017. as a scholar, he has presented at international conferences.