Carolina Stefani Y Sus Pelapapas

Singer Carolina Stefani and her band Pelapas at the Theaterstübchen

Like bubbles in a flute of champagne

Kassel. What a concert: sparkling, romantic, passionate. And with Carolina Stefani a sensous singer at the center of things, who knows how to get to the full depth of the fervor and the melancholy of Mediterranean music.

Even the stage design was perfectly set – its background dipped in midnight blue light – like the Mediterranean Sea at sunset. The Kassel-born singer appeared Friday night with her band the Pelapas, which means something like “potato peelers”, as she explained to the audience in the sold-out Theatersübchen.
The striking feature of the quintet, which was joined by Brazilian cajon player Rui Reis: its cosmpolitan composition. Including: charango virtuoso Diego Jascalevich (Argentina), pianist Julia Reingarth (Russia), Pedro Soriano Contreras (Dominican Republic) on percussions, and as the “geografic center”, bass player Philip Wipfler from Bavaria. Their repertoire takes in songs reaching from Latin America to the Mediterranean region. Rhythm and spirit were in full force when Portuguese fado or the Dominican merengue were leading the music.
Inspired by the moment, the singer ventured a little stage dance with her percussionist. Tango music was present as well, and came in three varieties: sung in Italian, French, and German. A great fun factor: “O Donna Clara, I saw you dancing”.
Further highlights included: movingly beautiful balads. Such as the homage to poet and women’s rights activist Alfonsina Storni (“Alfonsina y el mar”).
Carolina Stefani interpreted the melancholy of these songs with so much passion, beauty and heartache that goosepimples were rising up like bubbles in champagne. And as for the band? They proofed that showboating is unnecessary when high-level technique is combined with a lot of feeling. Moments of Latin passion followed as the final applause.
by Steve Kuberczyk-Stein
- HNA, 12.04.2011

"Vocal passion, musical empathy, exquisite repertoire"

Wistful Songs

When singer Carolina Stefani is live on stage, she is an event unto herself
There is a singer to discover: Carolina Stefani. The twenty-four year old lady from Kassel already has got everything what it takes to make her one of her fach’s greats: vocal passion, musical empathy, and an exquisite repertoire. Which is why her audience on Sunday night at the Schlachthof Kassel would hardly let her leave the stage. Too charmingly did her "Melodie Mediterrane" enchant senses and reason.
With a voice that gets instantly under the skin and doesn’t let go she sings her melancholy songs of dreamers and the restless, about love and farewell.
Accompanied by Hartmut Schmidt’s elegant piano playing and the expressive variety of clang colours conjured up by Wolfgang Scholz on saxophones, flute and percussion, Stefani lends new radiance even to well-known tearjerkers. Be it the Italian canzoni of Nino Rota, the rumba "Besame Mucho", or the chanson classic "Ne me quitte pas" - nothing sounds clichéd.
That in a live performance she impresses even more than on her worth-hearing debut album does not only speak for the sheer class of this singer, it moreover testifies to her extraordinary musical expressiveness and her amazing stage presence.
Her singing indulges the senses the most when she performs her Greek and Portuguese elegies and songs of lament, whose melancholy she enfolds with a sombre melodiousness.
To hear her master even the breakneck harmonious ramifications of a fado by Dulce Pontes is just breathtaking. Clear the stage for a talent that deserves a much bigger audience. Clear the stage for Carolina Stefani. - HNA

"Rose Mauve Bleu"

Pink, purple, blue – this is the theory of colours of Carolina Stefani. The booklet of her recently released new album exlains: pink is for love songs, purple is for Arabian rhythms, and blue is for the melancholy of Greek traditionals. As on her debut cd the 26-year-old is accompanied pianist Hartmut Schmidt. They are joined now by Hugo Scholz, who lends additional clang colours to the music on saxophone, flute, and percussions. The album contains, besides own compositions, Aegean classics, pieces by fado singer Dulce Pontes, as well as Latin American sounds. In a combination of finely arranged instrumentation and improvisation of increasing density, the songs build up a tension that climaxes in the singing of Carolina Stefani, a singing of stunning sensousness and intensity. "Rose Mauve Bleu" gives you sweet melancholy like a fine port wine. Made for rainy sunday afternoons. - FRITZ The Magazine