Edition number 4 of “To listen to”, the festival of experimental listening, dedicated to “the exploration of the different shapes of sound”, as per the communication claim. A mesmerizing cabinet of curiosities, a sonic Borges’ library, deployed through concerts, labs, sound installations and masterclasses, drove the audience towards the real Unknown and the sheer Unexpected. Concerts took place in the grand Concert Hall of the Conservatorio (free admittance!) and the following is what we attended.
Acousmonium of Paris INA grm (saturday 27)
Eve Aboulkeir - Guilin Synthetic Daydream, 2020
Jim O’Rourke - 8 views of a secret, 2024
Sarah Davachi - Basse Brevis, 2024
Francois J.Bonnet - Banshee, 2024
The term acousmonium comes from the french “acousmatique” utilized by Jerome Peignot, Pierre Schaeffer and Francois Bayle to define every noise or sound listened without seeing the source. Key elements are the tech specs of the speakers and their setting in the space, placed on the stage according to power and audio spectrum, in order to become a real orchestra. The music is “played” by the mixing desk, tuning the linear fader to manage the sound’s dynamics. The audience watches Nothing, listening to Everything: astonishing.
La fuga di Socrate - Guido Brignone, 1923 (tuesday 30)
The legendary movie is soundtracked live by Caravaggio (Bruno Chevillion, bass, double bass, electronics; Benjamin de la Fuente, violin, mandocaster, tenor electric guitar, electronics; Eric Echampard, drums, percussions, electronics; Samuel Sighicelli, Hammond, sampler, Korg, Minimoog), a post-rock band that through the “counterpoint technique” delivers sound effects and free spatial escapism, greatly enriching the old grainy photograms.
Mauricio Kagel: Spielplan, 1970. Instrumentalmusik in Aktion, concert version for experimental sound generators (wednesday 1)
From 1967 to 1970 Mauricio Kagel wrote nine books to be freely utilized to stage his (in)famous anti-opera Staatstheater and the sixth of those (Spielplan) consists of 42 pages describing how to generate sounds from an array of prepared objects, modified instruments, recycled materials, all of them hugely amplified through several kinds of microphones. Stanislas Pili, Joao Calado and Andrea Zamengo put on (likely for very first time) all the Spielplan pages, surrounded on stage by every kind of sound generators: drippers, wind machine, hoses, a disassembled piano, nails, mechanical toys, grids and watches. The Way of the Sound is Infinite (and we are deeply grateful for that).
Anna Clementi: I sing the Body Electric (Thursday 2)
Olga Neuwirth - Nova/Minraud, 1998
Aldo Clementi - Parafrasi, 1981
Laurie Schwartz - the waves, 2025
John Cage - Aria, 1996
Born in Rome, daughter of the composer Aldo Clementi, Anna soon moved to Berlin where she attended Dieter Schebel’s courses at the Hochschule der Kunste, teaming up with him in the group Die Maulwerker. John Cage has always been her North Star and on tonight’s repertoire he casts such an influence: voice, language, dance and words are combined in a prodigious way, clearly explaining why she's a self defined “actress of word”, instead of a singer.
Stefano Scodanibbio - Oltracuidansa, 1997/2002 for amplified double bass and 8 channels fixed media
One of the Greatest of All Time on the double bass, he composed more than 50 works, mostly for strings, played all over the world. Composers like Bussotti, Frith, Donatoni, Estrada, Xenakis wrote music for him, while John Cage said: “Stefano is astonishing, I never heard someone playing double bass as he plays”. Teacher at Berkeley, Stanford, Oberlin College, Stuttgart Musikhochschule, Conservatoire de Paris, Conservatorio di Milano, he spent long and fruitful collaborations with Luigi Nono, Giacinto Scelsi and Terry Riley, creating new techniques, extending the colours and range of the double bass, heretofore considered impossible on this instrument. His most famous and tremendously challenging work is “Oltracuidansa” and the impossible task to play it live is entrusted to Dario Calderone, a top notch double bassist, former collaborator of the late Sconadibbio. The outcome is simply astonishing, leaving us speechless.
Eiko Ishibashi & Jim O’Rourke - Pareidolia (sunday 5)
The Grand Finale with the aces of contemporary music: rock, pop, jazz, noise, free improv, electroacoustic composition, soundtracks, it’s really difficult to find a spot in their musical scope not yet charted. We saw them in town a couple of years ago with the embryonic project of Pareidolia, delivered tonight in its chiseled ultimate version, edited on record some months ago. The synthetic cold of laptop music is interspersed with vocal and flute, making the final result fascinating and evocative.
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