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YUGEN

YUGEN is an Italian trio formed in 2020, from the collaboration and thirty-year musical experience of three musicians from Salento: Katya Fiorentino on piano, Stefano Compagnone on bass, and Maurizio De Tommasi on drums.

In January 2022, the trio recorded their debut album, Tears and Light, released by Dodicilune Records and distributed by I.R.D. For this first recording project, YUGEN enriched their sound through the experience and refinement of Valerio Daniele on guitar, Giorgio Distante on trumpet, and Francesco Massaro on electronics.

Over the years, YUGEN have gained important recognition within the Italian music scene. June 2026, shortly after the release of Picture #2, the trio won the national L’Artista che non c’era award in the Instrumental category.

Earlier on, in 2025, the trio won the 8th edition of the Premio Carlo Gargioni in the Jazz category and were finalists at the Teano Jazz Contest.

In 2024, they were finalists at the 22nd edition of the national award L’Artista che non c’era, while in 2022 they won the 4th edition of the Forum Live Jazz Festival Contest.

The stylistic vision of the trio offers a colourful and multifaceted musical texture, where a constantly shifting yet deeply grounded intention emerges. The ostinato becomes the foundation upon which YUGEN paint singable melodies, dynamic interplay and captivating electronic incursions.

Their aesthetic research brings together three distinct musical personalities into a shared language capable of creating an original sound beyond classification. YUGEN is not simply jazz, not rock and not electronic music: YUGEN is all of these things at the same time.

For pianist Katya Fiorentino, “YUGEN is my expression, the possibility of telling my story through notes.” Bassist Stefano Compagnone describes the project as a feeling of freedom: “I have learned to balance on ostinatos and dance on melodies.” Drummer Maurizio De Tommasi connects the spirit of the trio to Morton Feldman’s vision of art existing between categories: “between time and space, between music and painting, between composition and musical surface.”

With Picture #2, YUGEN continue to navigate a space beyond fixed definitions, where melody, rhythm and atmosphere merge into a sound that is fluid, evocative and unmistakably their own.

Lineup
Katya Fiorentino — piano
Stefano Compagnone — bass
Maurizio De Tommasi — drums

Discography:
Yugen – Tears and Light (Dodicilune, 2023)
Yugen – From the Bin to the Sunrise (Filibusta Records, 2026, single)
Yugen – Picture #2 (Filibusta Records, 2026)

Awards

June 2026 - L’Artista che non c’era award in the Instrumental category.
2025, the trio won the 8th edition of the Premio Carlo Gargioni in the Jazz category
2022 they won the 4th edition of the Forum Live Jazz Festival Contest.

Gear

Lineup
Katya Fiorentino — piano
Stefano Compagnone — bass
Maurizio De Tommasi — drums

YUGEN: Picture #2

Read "Picture #2" reviewed by Neil Duggan

by Neil Duggan
July 13, 2026

Following their 2023 release Tears and Light (Dodicilune), Italian trio Yugen continue to refine a distinctive sound world that defies rigid genre classification, blurring the lines between jazz, ambient music and rock, all infused with cinematic imagination. It is an approach that has already earned the group numerous awards. The nine compositions on Picture #2 are all written by pianist Katya Fiorentino, who provides both the structural and emotional blueprint for the band's sound. Rather than adopting the familiar piano trio format ...

Album Review

Yugen: Death by Water

Read "Death by Water" reviewed by Claudio Bonomi

by Claudio Bonomi
July 8, 2016

Gli Yugen proseguono ostinatamente il loro viaggio quasi solitario nei meandri di una musica concettuale, colta e imparentata con Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Bartok, Romitelli, Cage, Ligeti, Zappa, Univers Zero, Henry Cow, King Crimson e altri. Un viaggio a zig zag segnato da fughe, variazioni, accelerazioni, conflagrazioni, divagazioni, pause, tempi frammentati e poi ricomposti, e, in sintesi, da una ricchezza di dimensioni e chiavi d'accesso, anche a livello letterario, che fanno di ogni lavoro del collettivo milanese guidato dal chitarrista-compositore Francesco Zago ...

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Album Review

Yugen: Uovo Fatali: Yugen Plays Leddi

Read "Uovo Fatali: Yugen Plays Leddi" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
April 25, 2009

While the concept of a new kind of classical music--liberally cross-pollinating beyond its furthest reaches--has been evolving since the 1970s with artists ranging from Univers Zero to Frank Zappa, there are those sadly overlooked in a new chamber music as likely to mix electric keyboards with violins as it is mandolin and drums with clarinets and grand piano. Multi-instrumentalist Tommaso Leddi was a founding member of Italy's Stormy Six, one of the seminal Rock in Opposition groups alongside Univers Zero, ...