This Italian duo's mission is as simple as it is bold: To make music with the bare necessities -- a stunning voice and a double bass -- free to trace any music back to its core. The repertoire for singer Petra Magoni and double bassist Ferruccio Spinetti has no boundaries, fusing bits of jazz, rock, punk, songwriting, and classical music. Their artistic power flows from an instinct about the quality of a song, finding its story, the meaning of its lyric, whether dramatic, sarcastic, melancholic, or romantic.

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They are two different but perfectly complementary artistic  personalities: a voice that becomes the interpreter of emotions, a double bass that becomes an orchestra. Fearless in the art of silence as well as sound, good humored as well as intelligent, their work can only be fully grasped in live performance where the drama of the stage is at one with the music. From song to song, Magoni brings forth tone colors so prodigious as to create the illusion of many singers. She twists her voice and body like a puppet as Spinetti punctuates space with teeming, cliff-hanging notes. Brilliance bursts forth -- fascinating, captivating, moving.

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Their newest album, Verso Sud (To the South), is a journey into the musical south of Italy and southern regions elsewhere in the world. Recorded in concert at Musica Delle Tradizioni (Music of Traditions Festival) in Vincenza, Italy, it reflects the duo's freewheeling instinct, both in repertoire and interpretation.

A few weeks ago, they performed in Naples in a festival conceived by classical pianist Michele Campanella and designed to merge the history and art of the city's oldest neighborhood with the beauty of 300 years of music. Named Spinacorona, 140 musicians performed twenty-two concerts over four days at fourteen sites within walking distance, places often not open to the public, and limited to forty minutes to allow audiences to walk from one to another. Musica Nuda performed in a church built in the 16th century connected to a 10th century monastery.

The duo's association with l'Orchestra di Piazza Vittorio continues to flourish with Magoni playing the role of Don Giovanni in the Orchestra's interpretation of the Mozart work. In 2020, they will present an interpretation of Turandot, a comic play written by Carlo Gozzi that Giacomo Puccini made into an opera. Marta Dalla Via is directing Musica Nuda's version, entitled Turandò, with Spinetti in the role of Pulcinella and Magoni playing all of the other characters. Music will include Puccini's arias, contemporary songs, and newly composed works.