Gianni Placido: Didgeridoo Solo at Tapadum
On 19 June 2021, didgeridoo soloist Gianni Placido performed Suonare un Corpo at Tapadum in Faenza — a solo set built on circular breathing and the instrument's resonant drone.
On June 19 we welcomed one of Italy’s most distinctive solo performers — a musician who has built his entire artistic life around a single instrument, and who has taken that instrument to stages across Europe and beyond.
Four people came for the concert. After the aperitivo at 18:30, the concert at 20:00, and the jam session that followed, the evening felt complete in itself.
Gianni Placido: A Life with the Didgeridoo
Gianni Placido has been a didgeridoo musician, producer, and teacher since 2006. Since 2010 he has produced six albums with his collective Ab Origine Band — a body of work that documents a sustained and serious engagement with the instrument and the traditions surrounding it.
He has performed at the major didgeridoo festivals across Europe: Le Rêve de l’Aborigène and Tribal Elek in France (two editions each), the Fatt Didgeridoo Festival in Portugal, the Israel Didgeridoo Festival, the Natibongo Didgeridoo Festival, Mama Africa Meeting, and Didjin’Oz in Italy, and the Burning Mountain Festival in Switzerland.
Beyond performance, Gianni is the president of the Associazione Culturale Didjeridooing and the Bologna Didgeridoo School — organisations through which he teaches, researches, promotes, and supports didgeridoo players and builders across Italy and internationally.
Suonare un Corpo: Playing a Body
The show Gianni brought to Tapadum — Suonare un Corpo, “Playing a Body” — is a solo performance for didgeridoo alone, with a selection of pieces drawn from his last three albums. Each song a vision, a story, an emotion. The invitation, as he describes it, is to immerse body, mind, and heart in the source of oneself.
That framing is not incidental. The didgeridoo is the wind instrument of the Aboriginal peoples of Australia, one of the oldest continuously played instruments in human history. Its sound — a continuous, resonant drone produced through circular breathing — operates on the body as much as the ears. At sufficient volume and proximity, it is felt as much as heard. In a small room, that quality is intensified.
Gianni’s solo performance strips the instrument of accompaniment and lets it speak on its own terms. No percussion, no melody instruments, no backing tracks. Just the wood, the breath, and the circular breathing technique that allows a single player to sustain unbroken sound for as long as the music requires.
Hear the Music
Two recordings that give a sense of Gianni Placido’s solo work:
The full Ab Origine Band discography is available at gianniplacido.it.
After the Concert: Jam Session
At 21:00 we opened the floor for a jam session. The didgeridoo is an instrument that invites other instruments to respond — its drone creates a harmonic foundation that almost anything can sit on top of. Whoever had brought an instrument that evening joined in.
Tapadum hosts concerts and workshops from across the world. Explore our handcrafted instrument collection or follow our upcoming events.
Özgür Yalçın is the founder of Tapadum and the founding member of Karagüneş. He has performed ethnic and world music across Europe for over twenty-five years and builds custom instruments from Tapadum’s workshop in Brisighella, Italy.