Quasar Lux Symphoniae was born on September 20th 1976 through the initiative of Roberto Sgorlon, at that time a drummer, with Umberto Del Negro on the bass and Stefano Vallan on theFarfisa organ. After a beginning mostly dedicated to performing covers of the Italian group "Le Orme", Roberto fell in love with the electric guitar and, initially self-taught, composed on the piano the first work entitled The Dead Dream, based on Umberto's lyrics. The master of this first psychedelically natured piece, dated 1977 and forerunner of the modern home recording was lost, and in1995, Roberto again recorded it in the studio, trying to maintain the original sound of the period.
In the early eighties, the young and talented drummer Fabrizio Morassutto joined Quasar. He was destined to become the irreplaceable rhythmic drive of the band up to today. In 1984, Quasar Lux Symphoniae, once again a rock trio (guitar, bass and drums, with Roberto as vocalist) entered the realm of Hard Rock and made a studio recording of the album titled Night Hymn, with music by Roberto and lyrics by Umberto. Quasar obtained its first reviews from specialized magazines, both domestic and foreign, which described the group as "...a true revelation in the world of melodic hard rock".
Roberto's love of classical music and his intimate need to grow as a musician led him to deepen his studies. This caused him to cross paths with Paolo Paroni, a promising young student of organ, composition and orchestra conducting. They soon formed a strong friendship. Paolo, one with a tangible interest in new and stimulating musical genres, joined the band in 1988, and thus determined the decisive turning point for Quasar Lux Symphoniae. The group demonstrated its technical and musical progress by performing complex covers of Emerson Lake & Palmer and of Peter Gabriel's Genesis, while also making complex arrangements of pieces by Bach, Vivaldi, Mozart, and Beethoven, forcibly bringing the band to the attention of an elite but ever growing number of listeners.
In the early nineties, Paolo Paroni and Roberto Sgorlon were inspired to create a large scale work. During this time, the unique talents of the group were noticed by a German producer who contracted the band. Abraham was thus born. Abraham was a double CD, one-act rock opera, in which Quasar Lux Symphoniae began to draw acclaim on an international scale. The success of the album was widespread, and the band obtained flattering reviews from specialized magazines and websites from all over the world. This encouraged the group to proceed along the path of the new sound, made up of a mixture of styles in which cultivated music of all ages and rock magically mixed. Abrahamincluded, among its featured guests, various singers and added musicians, in addition to the mixed choir Panarie. Anna Malvasio, a singer whose vocal style ranges from classical to rock, enchanted Paolo and Roberto, pushing them to recruit her as the first and only female voice in the history of the band. Other important additions include Fabio Giacomello, finger picking guitar player and author of the lyrics in Abraham, and Italo Cigainero on the electric bass.
In 1995 The Enlightening March of the Argonauts was released, with music composed by Paolo Paroni and Roberto Sgorlon and lyrics by Franco Cautero. With this album, Quasar Lux Symphoniae continued upon their ambitious path with their unique sound stemming from Abraham. Reviews were once again very positive. However, the group considered the album a transition piece, particularly since it didn't posses a strong uniformity of style among the various tracks.
MIT was made in 1999, an album in which Paolo Paroni and Roberto Sgorlon enabled Fabio Giacomello to realize his own project. The result was a very articulate concept album, whose strength was, once more, a mix. However, this time it was a mix between Paolo and Roberto's clearly defined style, and Fabio's prevailing guitar style. During this time, new members were added to the group: Mauro Chiapolino, who replaced former bass player Paolo Maestrutti, Marco Bertolissi, who offered an alternative to Roberto's voice, Ulisse Tonon, an important collaborator on keyboards with Paolo Paroni, who had become increasingly engrossed in his own career as an orchestra conductor.
The band seldom gave live concerts, but when it did, it was done in grandeur, especially when centered upon the performance of Abraham, and used the QLS acronym as their official name. With the approach of the band's thirtieth anniversary, Roberto Sgorlon felt a growing urge to mark the occasion with a new album and, after a few years of composing silence, set out with a four-handed work with Paolo Paroni. Now, after two years of labor, Synopsis is born; a work with seven original compositions. The leitmotiv in Synopsis is an homage to the group's various periods of composition styles: Rhapsody and Fugue, a complex four-part fugue in baroque style, Arcano and Islemind, pieces in which an unusual melodic vein finds its place, Oblivion, a tribute to the psychedelic period, Snake Dream, homage to the band's hard rock period, Moses, a short opera which calls back to Abraham, and also Flighting Thoughts, with Fabio's acoustic guitar in the foreground.
In 2007, after over thirty years of leadership and at the end of an exciting and wonderful journey, with almost twenty years beside his friend and collaborator Paolo Paroni, Roberto Sgorlon stepped down from the group's leadership, leaving the band's musical heritage in Paolo's hands and the spiritual one in Fabrizio's, now the group's senior member. Replacing Roberto has been a difficult and painful, albeit necessary task. Being qualified musicians isn't enough to be part of QLS: the fundamental qualities are adaptability, artistic humility, and study, which, under Paolo Paroni's steady guidance and direction, transforms into great music and entertainment. Our newest members, Elvio Tavian on the lead guitar, Marco Filippo on the rythm guitar and Luca Vigneri as vocalist, prove to be perfectly up to the task, casting a new beam of light on the future of QLS.
In 2006 the leader and founder of QLS, Roberto Sgorlon, suggested that we celebrate the band's 30th anniversary with a musical tribute album showcasing QLS' evolution with a special emphasis on the past styles of the band. At first, I wasn’t convinced. The album Abrahamrepresented a dramatic turning point in QLS' style and the thought of revisiting the styles of the past didn't initially appeal to me. In addition, many years had already passed since our last creative effort.
However, the embers of true love always burn at the bottom of the heart, so I accepted the challenge and sat at the piano with Roberto at my side as collaborator, “outer ear”, guide, and as an ideal audience. We worked for two years composing seven new pieces. We started with two songs which we believed should determine the new densely melodic QLS style, first writing Arcano, based on a theme by Roberto, then on to Islemind. But the real fun started when it came to paying tribute to the earliest stylistic stages, the psychedelic and the hard rock periods. It was a question of looking at the past without neglecting our present-day creative abilities and the result of this wedding was the birth of Oblivion and Snake Dream.
After that, it seemed natural for us to draw our inspiration from our glorious rock opera, Abraham, to compose Moses followed by Flighting Thoughts, based on an acoustic guitar riff. Eventually, we decided to give the album a daring and unique overture and wrote Rhapsody and Fugue, exploring the effect of a rock band playing a real four-part fugue in baroque style.
At the end of the creative stage, Roberto regretfully confided in me that he wished to leave the band in order to fully dedicate himself to his spiritual path. It is with a mix of joy and sorrow that I thank him for everything he has done, and heartily dedicate to him Synopsis. Nobody but Roberto could have persuaded me to write music for this extraordinary band, and I couldn’t have accomplished this without his help and support.

Paolo Paroni


Source : http://www.qlsprog.com/