Maschere Nude is an artistic project that presents Sicily in an unconventional and, at times, entirely fresh way. The dynamic interplay between two jazz-trained musicians and the passionate delivery of a voice rich with Sicilian character conjures the essence of a land full of beauty, emotion, poetry, and contradictions.
Songs by traditional and contemporary composers, as well as original pieces and spontaneous moments of improvisation, come to life through the sound of acoustic instruments and the Sicilian dialect. With its unique inflections, rhythms, and expressions, the dialect itself becomes a form of music.
The Maschere Nude trio is made up of Annalisa Pappalardo on vocals, Giuseppe Mirabella on guitar, and Andrea Liotta on drums.

annalisa pappalardo

Annalisa is a singer who, in recent years, has chosen to combine her love for singing with her passion for the Sicilian dialect and its literary and cultural tradition. An interest, which began in childhood through the listening of stories and songs, has grown over time through research and reading works by both well-known and lesser-known Sicilian musical and literary authors.
For several years now, together with guitarist Giuseppe Mirabella and percussionist Andrea Liotta, she has performed with an acoustic trio that blends music, words, improvisation, and cultural identity. The project also takes shape through home concerts, transforming into intimate spaces for listening, cultural exchange, and authentic artistic experience.

GIuseppe Mirabella

In 1999, as part of the Umbria Jazz festival, he was awarded a scholarship to the Berklee School of Music in Boston. In 2001, in Isernia, he won first prize at the Eddie Lang International Competition for young jazz guitarists.
From 2008, for four years, he was a regular member of the internationally renowned pianist Dado Moroni’s trio, performing at major Italian jazz festivals.
He has actively contributed to projects with some of the best-known Sicilian jazz musicians: in 2009 he recorded the album Light with jazz pianist and composer Giovanni Mazzarino; in 2014 and 2015 he took part in the recordings of Kairòs and Where is the Happiness by pianist Dino Rubino; and since 2010 he has been a member of the Open Band led by composer and drummer Mimmo Cafiero.
He has released three albums under his own name: Moods, Braintrain, and Naumachia.
He holds degrees in Computer Engineering and in Jazz Composition and Arrangement, and has given seminars on digital audio signal processing at the Faculties of Electronic and Computer Engineering at the University of Catania. He teaches guitar, harmony, and improvisation at the Open Jazz School in Palermo and at the Centro Etneo Studi Musicali in Catania.
Giuseppe is the creator of GuitarLayers, a software application that maps harmonic rules onto the guitar fretboard, distributed worldwide by Apple.

andrea liotta

Drummer, percussionist, composer, and arranger. He graduated with top honors in Percussion Instruments from the A. Corelli State Conservatory in Messina and enriched his education through participation in numerous masterclasses and workshops in jazz and classical music.

In 2015, he won first prize in the group category at the Paolo Randazzo music competition, alongside double bassist Riccardo Grosso and pianist Marco Puglisi.

That same year, he ranked among the top positions in both the group and solo jazz categories at the Ibla Grand Prize Festival, sponsored by the Carnegie Hall Foundation in New York.

In 2021, he received the first prize for Best Composition at the International Johnny Raducanu Festival in Brăila, Romania, with the VARKES jazz ensemble.

In 2022, he won third place in the L’albero della Musica competition as a marimbist, performing in concert at the prestigious Laudamo Hall in Messina.