Il Quaderno di Nerina

B’Rock Orchestra, Robin Verheyen & Cristina Zavalloni

In the bottom drawer of an old desk, American-British writer Jhumpa Lahiri found a fuchsia notebook with the handwritten letters “Nerina” on the cover. Inside, she discovered a series of everyday poems by this elusive woman, about whom no further details are known. Lahiri moulded and annotated the verses into a layered account that reads like the diary of a nomad with different lives.

It shows striking parallels with the globetrotting life of saxophonist and composer Robin Verheyen. The poetry inspired him to write a brand-new composition that transcends the boundaries of genre and time. In Il Quaderno di Nerina, he blends the colour of historical instruments with saxophone and mezzo-soprano voice. Through improvisation, he builds a bridge between his creation and the refined polyphony in the Fantasias of Baroque composer Henry Purcell.