Texts

Integra, a novel approach to music with live electronics

Anders Beyer invited me to write an article on the Integra project for Nordic Sounds. Here it is. Read on or download the magazine issue.

Integra, a novel approach to music with live electronics

A desire to empower composers and performers to work with live electronics technology in a musical and user-friendly way is at the heart of the Integra project, an international collaboration of research centres and new music ensembles supported by the European Commission. Thanks to a programme of interrelated activities along the three main axes of research, ...

Organised Sound article

Modernising musical works involving Yamaha DX-based synthesis: a case study

This article written in collaboration with Jamie Bullock has been published on Organised Sound, issue no. 5 2006.

We describe a new approach to performing musical works that use Yamaha DX7-based synthesis. We also present an implementation of this approach in a performance system for Madonna of Winter and Spring by Jonathan Harvey. The Integra Project, “A European Composition and Performance Environment for Sharing Live Music Technologies” (a three year co-operation agreement part financed by the European Commission, ref. 2005-849), is introduced as framework for reducing the difficulties with modernising and preserving ...

ICMC 2005 Harvey paper

Modernising live electronics technology in the works of Jonathan Harvey

This paper was written together with Jamie Bullock and presented at the 2005 International Computer Music Conference in Barcelona. Here follows the abstract:

Many twentieth century works composed for instruments and live electronics are seldom performed due to their use of near obsolete technology. Some performing bodies avoid such works because the necessary technology is either unavailable or too expensive to hire. This paper describes the current status of a project to modernise the technical aspects of Jonathan Harvey’s works in order to increase the likelihood of performance and improve longevity. The ...

Lettre ouverte à Yann Orlarey

[in French] A letter I sent in November 2004 to Yann Orlarey, Scientific Director of GRAME in Lyon, France. The letter was in response to Yann’s decision not to participate in the Integra project. The text of Yann’s letter I was replying to is at the bottom of the post.

* * *

Cher Yann,

D’abord merci beaucoup pour tes commentaires si détaillés, et je te prie de m’excuser si je n’ai pas répondu avant, mais j’ai eu une semaine assez terrible, et je voulais dédier à ma réponse le temps nécessaire.

J’ai beaucoup de respect pour tes opinions sur le projet, ...

Open letter to Paul White

Birmingham, 22 September 2003

To Paul White, Editor in Chief, Sound On Sound magazine

Dear Paul,

thank you for your leader column on the October 2003 issue. You have simply and beautifully put into words something we all feel when working on a music project in a technology-dependent environment, be it on a lone laptop or in a complex project studio: our creative energy is often held captive by the incredible amount of big and small technological problems we have to solve all the time.
Music software (almost ANY music software, unfortunately…) is the classical example, where hundreds of features are there to mask ...

Persistence of ritual elements

Notes for a talk I gave during Birmingham Conservatoire’s Research Days in 2002.

Persistence of ritual elements in 20th century music. A composer’s view.

Abstract:
The ritual process in its various declinations, from tribal rites of passage to Greek tragedy, from religious ceremonies to the dynamics of social behaviour, is a powerful concept that can be applied to many seminal musical works of the last century. This paper aims to show briefly how the ritual dimension has been approached by composers, from Stravinsky to Berio, and how ritual elements are surprisingly attuned to many issues of today’s music.

* * *

We can ...

Fanfare interview

This is the text of an interview appeared in the Fanfare magazine in 2001. George Caird, Principal of Birmingham Conservatoire, is the interviewer.

* * *

Composer and Music Technologist, Lamberto Coccioli came to the Conservatoire in September 2000 to take up the newly created post of Head of Music Technology. George Caird spoke to him about Music Technology and his particular interest in new technologies applied to music performance.

GC With our diaries the way they are, interviewing for an article in Fanfare will be a very good way of catching up with you on all that is going on in ...

Promozione della musica contemporanea

Il testo che segue è stato scritto nel 2000 su invito di Rossana Rummo, allora alla Direzione Generale dello Spettacolo al Ministero dei Beni Culturali.

* * *

Note sulla promozione della musica contemporanea in Italia

1. Considerazioni generali
Parto da una considerazione banale: una persona intellettualmente curiosa ma senza una preparazione specifica acquista volentieri un libro o un disco appena usciti, segue teatro e cinema, va ai concerti, visita le mostre ed è generalmente abbastanza informata sull’attività culturale della propria città, ma molto difficilmente ascolta musica contemporanea. Perché?

La risposta in fondo è molto semplice: ogni espressione artistica ha la sua storia, e ...

Carnegie Hall lecture

Notes for a talk I gave on works by Berio and Maderna.

Pre-concert Lecture, The Luciano Berio – Tempo Reale Workshop
Carnegie Hall, New York, October 1997

The three compositions that are going to be played tonight are of a very different nature. A new work for two soloists and orchestra, Alternatim, a short piece for small instrumental ensemble, Serenata per un satellite; and Ofanim, a long composition for two children’s choirs, a female voice, two instrumental groups and live electronics. Those of you who are used to come to this hall will notice the differences: we don’t want to show off the ...

London Sinfonietta a Santa Cecilia

London Sinfonietta diretta da Markus Stenz
Auditorium di Santa Cecilia, Roma, 14 febbraio 1996

Charles Ives, The Unanswered Question
Luca Francesconi, Plot in fiction
Gyorgy Kurtag, Messages of the late Miss R.V. Trousova
Steve Reich, City Life

Stasera ho avuto una sensazione di vuoto: non so, forse dipendeva dal fatto che la sala era semivuota, o perché nessuno dei pezzi mi è piaciuto veramente; ma credo che la vera ragione è che le ragioni del «rito» concerto stasera erano più deboli del solito, come sempre avviene quando qualche elemento manca – in questo caso il pubblico. E’ sorprendente come neanche il brillante modo di suonare della ...

Review of La Cetra Appesa by Corghi

Azio Corghi – La Cetra Appesa
Santa Cecilia Auditorium, Rome, 24 November 1996

La Cetra Appesa by Corghi. Truly mixed feelings…I didn’t know what to say afterwards. Well, at least not to the author. The part-writing for the choir wasn’t at all exciting: very rhythmical (dull rhythms, to be honest) and harmonically too poor. Parallel motions and the whole stuff… I really didn’t like it at all. The orchestral writing was much better: the right colours, a full and vibrating sound, but an overall impression of very self-contained, isolated sections, without the sense of continuity that a piece of 45 minutes should ...

Critica a Teorema di Battistelli

Giorgio Battistelli – Teorema
Deposito ATAC, Roma, 12 maggio 1996

Un’opera senza canto, senza voce, a parte apodittiche enunciazioni dal Cantico dei Cantici. Una scommessa difficile, anche con l’apporto prezioso della regia di Ronconi, e non completamente riuscita.

La musica: amplificazione un po’ scura, forse per colpa dell’orchestrazione, così impastata. Il problema della musica, che dovrebbe essere l’elemento creatore e trainante del dramma, della narrazione, consiste nel fatto che, essendo piuttosto strutturata per episodi chiusi, alternati da rumori “daily-life” tipo cucina di ristorante o bar ministeriale, non permette di individuare un percorso drammatico, tanto meno legato, anche ellitticamente, a ciò che avviene sul ...

La sfida della complessità

Presentazione di una conferenza che ho tenuto su invito di Carmelo Piccolo e dell’organizzazione Eximia Forma nell’agosto del 1994.

* * *

La sfida della complessità: quale ruolo oggi per la musica colta?

In che modo la musica colta può interpretare la realtà, ed essere una voce autentica della nostra condizione?
Attraverso la comunicazione; la comunicazione è valida ed efficace quando esiste un rapporto vitale tra opera e pubblico.
Per non perdere questo rapporto è necessario attingere all’immenso bazar della storia, identificando le invarianti della trasmissione di un’idea musicale: non più un problema di linguaggio dunque, ma di dialettica tra attesa e sorpresa, e ...