Filomena Campus Quartet & Collaborations

Filomena Campus formed her own quartet in 2010 with long-time collaborators pianist Steve Lodder and Dudley Phillips on double bass. Their Jester of Jazz project with music by Lodder and Phillips and lyrics by Campus, culminated in a recording in 2011 featuring saxophonist Jean Toussaint and flautist Rowland Sutherland. Drummer Rod Youngs has completed the band since 2014. The Filomena Campus Quartet has brought its unique take on jazz to audiences around the world, touring in Italy, the UK, Germany, Thailand, Morocco, Qatar and Jordan.

Constantly creating new work and texts, Filomena draws inspiration from theatre and literature, performance art, and her Sardinian roots. In the quartet's new project, Sirensong, Campus celebrates her eclectic artistic career in music and theatre since she left Sardinia to move to London in 2001. This project features new compositions written with pianist Steve Lodder and arrangements of tunes that have been part of Campus' repertoire and international collaborations. Campus in this project also explores the female side of jazz with songs about female artists who have inspired her work, such as Franca Rame, as well the stories of women at the margin, such as women refugees. The character of Queen Mab is a fairy referred to in Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet, where "she is the fairies' midwife, who helps artists give birth to their dreams. In this journey, where music and improvisation intertwine with spoken word, Mab is compared to Sardinian myths of the Janas (legendary fairies), linking her Mediterranean roots to contemporary jazz with an electronic twist. Charlie Pyne joins the band for this project, on double bass and her fab vocals.

The Quartet's project Italy VS England started in 2013 with prominent Italian author Stefano Benni, who performs with the band and who wrote the texts of this ironic jazz theatre performance with original music by the Quartet.