Italian, Rome-based prolific reed player Marco Colonna thinks that art is first and foremost an act of compassion, and not only compassion to your closest ones, but compassion reflecting all who suffer or are in need. Colonna addressed the horrific, futile war in Gaza recently with his solo album, Eight Decades (Self-Released, 2025), which featured eight variations on the theme of “Bella Ciao”.
Icarus Falling is dedicated to Palestinian writer, poet, and librarian (the founder of the Edward Said Library, Gaza’s first English language library) from the Gaza Strip, now exiled in Egypt, Mosab Abu Toha, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2025 for his essays on the Gaza war in The New Yorker. Colonna says that Abu Toha’s
