By Andrew Choate
For anyone tuned into jazz, contemporary composition, outernational,
improvised and experimental music over the last several decades, the
AngelicA Festival in Bologna has stood as a beacon for legendary
performances and landmark recordings. Its legacy is as expansive as it is
enduring: from the personally foundational—Cecil Taylor’s
At AngelicA 2000 Bologna
, a double-CD documenting his Dance of All Seasons for piano and
voice, including a bonus disc interweaving an insightful interview with
performance excerpts—to the carnivalesque and theatrical—Tristan
Honsinger’s This That And The Other performing
Sketches of Probability
, where swing and storytelling finally embody the transcendental aspect of
absurdity. Then there’s the controversial—MIMEO’s
The Hands of Caravaggio
, a decisive and accidentally divisive live recording by the experimental
electronic ensemble coordinated by Keith Rowe and featuring pianist John
Tilbury; the monumentally historic—Eyvind Kang’s Athlantis,
blending Renaissance texts with contemporary awe-meets-woe sonic grandeur;
and the ecstatically fantastical—Ilaiyaraaja’s Music Journey, a
wild ride through Carnatic rhythms paired with polyphonic counterpoint that
shimmers like stained glass in an earthquake. Even for the profoundly
illustrious Ilaiyaraaja, this was a career-altering moment: his first-ever
live performance of his own work, opening up an entirely new realm of his
practice. AngelicA is thick with a tradition of supporting contemporary
developments at the forefront of musical thinking, where virtuosity and
vision viscerally intersect in lived emotion.
Most of the concerts take place in Bologna at the festival’s headquarters:
an old theater on a busy street in the university district. It’s about a
twenty-minute walk from where I’m staying, and I pass more than a hundred
bars and restaurants along the way—everything from intimate Italian fine
dining to al fresco pizzerias, casual ramen and phở joints, and multiple
takeout spots specializing in Indian, Syrian, Lebanese, Chinese and, what
else, Bolognese tagliatelle and tortellini. Walking back after the first
concert, I thought I’d never seen so many college students drinking in the
street. But that was a Wednesday; I hadn’t yet seen a Friday night.
The Teatro San Leonardo has a rich and winding history. Originally built in
the 14th century and functioning as a church for centuries, it was damaged
during World War II and reemerged in the 1960s as a hub for political
theater. It remained a theater through several changes of ownership before
becoming, in 2011, the home of the Centro di Ricerca Musicale—the
headquarters of the AngelicA Festival. The stage inside is high, nearly a
meter, with a few crumbling statues tucked into wall alcoves. Assigned
seating and modern lighting coexist swimmingly within the lingering
historic atmosphere. On nice days, drinks are served in an adjacent
garden—though no beverages are allowed in the hall during performances.
The audience tends to be unusually devoted. A Greek man told me he’s
attended every festival since its inception. Another, from Florence, said
that even if the same ensemble plays in his hometown, he still prefers to
hear them here, because something about this space elicits their best. I’ve
noticed a healthy mix in the crowd: older women attending in small, chatty
friend groups; scatterings of loner students; black heavy metal
t-shirt-wearing aficionados; and the occasional intrepid tourist on a
pilgrimage (not just me!). It’s the kind of crowd that listens closely, and
the music earns that attention.
April 30, 2025
Centro di Ricerca Musicale/ Teatro San Leonardo – Bologna
Charlemagne Palestine & Rhys Chatham
TWO forrrrr AngelicA
In proper there-is-no-beginning-and-there-is-no-end fashion,
Charlemagne Palestine initiated a light, drifting drone from some small
electric organs that leaked into the atmosphere of the theatre before the
concert had “officially” begun, and before I was even consciously aware of
sound beyond ambience. It was as if it had always been there, and only the
turning on of awareness made its presence felt. When Massimo Simonini came
out to introduce the festival, Palestine turned down his sound slightly,
then raised it back up—suggesting we were always already within the concert
experience, the boundaries deliberately blurred between formal presentation
and atmospheric presence. The first section of the duo featured his small
organs prominently, generating a continual misty, spritzy drone-wash that
rose like the essence of ethereal aethers.
 |
| Charlemagne Palestine & Rhys Chatham. Photo © Massimo Golfieri |
The visual dynamic between the performers proved immediately striking. Rhys
Chatham focused on movements that made no discernible sonic impact, the
opposite of watching a '90s laptopist: where electronic performers once
made few gestures while producing torrents of sound, Chatham made elaborate
gestures yielding little audible result. Had I not seen him on stage
engaged in obscure manipulations, I might have thought this was Palestine's
solo performance. After lengthy fuzz, Palestine moved to the piano (dolce
contra forte) and played two clear notes, squared. Following a pause, more
discrete sounds emerged—variations on the two-note sequence that collided
like smoke rings in slow motion. In my mind I had thought of Palestine as a
spiritually playful minimalist, but I heard him talking after the concert
and he disparaged any association with minimalism. He said he wanted to
assassinate the term and called it a malady, rightly identifying the term's
primary purpose as commercial rather than artistic. Focused would be more
accurate: his intense oscillations of overtones permeated the space.
Chatham, however, I couldn’t figure out. His fingers were hitting the
strings of his electric guitar, but what sounds were they producing? I have
to assume he was contributing to the ambient hum that hovered within the
music. Then came some palpable puffs on an alto flute, soon looped and
muffled to the point of disappearance. The resulting soundscape resembled a
thick shake that refused to stir—not because the music was too dense, but
because it moved too slowly to swirl properly. Palestine’s repetitions and
micro-modifications were aurally fascinating, though he seemed to want more
from his collaborator. Chatham’s flute eventually blew some bubbles into the
coagulating smoothie.
The interpersonal dynamic between them was compelling. Chatham looked at
Palestine the way Cecil Taylor studied Anthony Braxton during their first
duo in London in 2007 – but unlike that encounter, these two have performed
together before, though not in a decade. At one moment, Palestine concluded
an incredible stream of clustered overtones with a flourish and looked to
Chatham for a response; nothing coming, Palestine started anew, eventually
singing a clipped Tuvan phoneme ping-pong swarm. I heard a gentle ferocity
in his relentless restlessness on the piano, which seems to be cleansed by
the use of his voice. There’s a rhizomatic resplendence to the colors he
draws out of rhythmic nuance, varying his attacks across a narrow pitch
range while Chatham added atmosphere, eventually producing appreciable
guitar twiddles.
After the concert I attempted to photograph Palestine's animal totems—the
stuffed creature he had placed on his piano and the three on Chatham’s
table. While I was snapping the one on the piano, Chatham was clearing his
equipment. When I turned back to record these others, I found them
face-down on the floor of the stage. It made me feel strangely sad to see
them in this downfallen state and I regret not capturing them in this
posture, but I wasn’t quick enough to adapt to the new reality’s quiet
dismantling of my imagined plan: I had to recover from the emotion. I also
didn’t see the gesture that caused their displacement; one hopes it was
just casual and accidental. Still, there they were: toppled. It was a
poignantly unresolved coda to an evening of musical ambiguity shimmering
with charged fragility.
May 4, 2025
Teatro Comunale Pavarotti-Freni - Modena
Rhys Chatham
Concerto for 33 electric guitars, electric bass and drums
My ambivalence to this concert had me questioning whether I actually like
guitar music. Alas, I do. I love Hans Reichel, Hot Rats, Wendy
Eisenberg, Keith Rowe and Helmut Lachenmann’s Salut für Caudwell.
I just don’t think I have a taste for Rhys Chatham’s take on oversized
guitar ensembles. Known for 100-guitar “orchestras,” he settled for 33 in
Modena plus the electric bass of Myriam Stamoulis and the drums of Jonathan
Kane, rounding out the ensemble to 35 in a nod to the 35 years of the
AngelicA festival. Compared to, say, The League of Crafty Guitarists (whom
I also enjoy) this music seemed to have very little compositional intent:
twas all a thrumblin’ and a jiggling. The first movement was loosey-goosey
ambient frogmouth foam, then came a field of glimmering strums over a
pedestrian rock beat and dry-funk bass. With such a uniform soundscape, I
found myself craving more prominence from Stamoulis’ bass (she was worth
paying attention to throughout.) But I was probably missing the point: It’s all about the guitars, dude. |
| Rhys Chatham with 33 Electric Guitarists. Photo © Massimo Golfieri |
But the guitar gestures themselves were so rudimentary, it felt like space
was being filled rather than shaped – and time was simply a bystander.
There was nowhere near enough counterpoint––in the land of Morricone no
less––to make this feel like a composition. Baby steps toward composing
contrasted with the giant leap of organizing such a spectacle. Individual
guitarists weren’t featured, which is an artistic choice, but even the
power of the collective was underused. The only time dynamics came into
play—quieting one section and then building it back up—was stunningly
effective. Where was more of that? The overall aesthetic seemed to equate
scale with substance. But blowing up a bland image and slapping it on a
billboard doesn’t make it more compelling. The music felt childish without
being playful, sugary without nuance, like Coke. This is going to sound
extreme, but I had a chilling sensation that this overproduction was a
desecration of the blues, scaled up for easy commodification and
comprehension.
Movement 5, newly composed for the occasion, began with a promisingly wild
swirl of oblong sound—like a doppler blur stirred by helicopter blades. But
that richness soon gave way to a single, unrelenting vamp. Imagine the riff
from Wire’s “Pink Flag” repeated until it becomes an antiseptic narcotic.
(Ironically, Wire recorded a blisteringly intense 10-minute live version of
that track in 2011 in Chatham’s adopted home of Paris.) The audience gave
the performance a standing ovation, so clearly my experience was not the
standard. Chatham and the ensemble were also clearly having a great
time––which, honestly, gave me pleasure by proxy. If nothing else, it
confirmed my belief that guitars are not inherently good or evil—just very,
very numerous.
May 7, 2025
Centro di Ricerca Musicale/ Teatro San Leonardo – Bologna
Naïny Diabaté & Eve Risser
ANW BE YONBOLO «We Are Together»
It’s rare to find music that is both careful and frolicsome, but this duo
excels at exactly that. Their songs are accessibly proportioned and might
be passed overdismissively as a kind of multi-culti folk-pop. Except they
sound awesome—and are crafted from improvisation and infused with
meaningful themes, including female empowerment, dignity and survival.
Since 2018, when Naïny Diabaté and Eve Risser brought together their
respective Kaladjula and Red Desert orchestras to form Kogoba Basigui, this
intergenerational Malian-French collaboration has developed a music that is
as meaningful as it is welcoming. Their performance radiated a buoyant
spirit of camaraderie, calling to mind the alchemical heights of Barney
Wilen’s “Gardenia Devil” from his 1968 album Moshi.
 |
| Naïny Diabaté. Photo © Massimo Golfieri |
Risser’s piano was prepared at both ends, with the middle left seemingly
clean—allowing her to weave meticulous melodic patterns from the center and
add dramatic percussive punctuation from the edges. Though often considered
a modern, ultra-Western instrument, the prepared piano here evoked
traditional African percussion: buzzing timbres, complex distortions and
idiosyncratic tunings. Risser takes full advantage of these resonances,
infusing short-form tunes with flares of colorful density. Diabaté’s voice
was a warm proclamation: part jubilee, part incantation. She spun short
phrases into fine embroidery, or held long notes just long enough to reveal
their bodily vibration. One song asked, “Where are the women with
instruments?”—an invitation for more female musicians and a call for
greater recognition. Yes please. Another declared, “We are the lionesses”
(Nous sommes les lionnes), a welcome moment of positive
self-identification, expanded by audience call-and-response. In the
persistently dark times of global politics, this music broadcasts
affirmations—and, maybe more importantly, invitations to affirmation. The
duo’s interplay embodied the very themes they sang: Risser joined Diabaté
on vocals occasionally, doubling and reaffirming, like a hand on the
shoulder saying, “I’ve got your back.”
 |
| Eve Risser. Photo © Massimo Golfieri |
The tone was lighthearted, but that levity floated on emotional depth and
technical intricacy. On a song calling to the ancestors—“the good
ones!”—Diabaté’s voice, lightly soaked in reverb, seemed to reach back
through time. She modulated her phrasing in subtle play with the echo,
bending it just enough to stir something ancient but undormant. Throughout,
Risser bounded across the keyboard and inside the piano (sometimes striking
it with a mallet), animating the music with a prance-and-pounce energy. It
was this attitude—committed to being engaging without simplification—that
brought the music fully to life: joyful, clear-eyed, and undiminished even
when facing complex and deeply human concerns.
* Postscript on Eve Risser—because it needs to be said somewhere. I think
of her as one of the most vital voices of my generation. The breadth of her
work is crucial: a formidable solo piano practice; multiple working duos
and small bands with musicians from an array of backgrounds; unflinching
openness to first-time collaborations; and leadership or co-leadership of
four––4!––different orchestras. But it’s not just
the scope—it’s the depth with which she commits to each project, whether it
leans toward punk, toy instruments, free improvisation or something
altogether uncategorizable.
It should feel ordinary—this kind of attentive, enthusiastic engagement
with the wildly diverse musical landscape we inhabit—but after three
decades of listening and participating in music, I can say without
exaggeration: her combination of commitment and breadth is anything but
standard. It’s rare. And of course, none of it would matter if her piano
playing weren’t so sublime: powerful and whimsical, deeply textural and
corporeal, always dexterous—and above all, fun.
All of this comes before even mentioning her dedication to creating
opportunities for underrepresented people. Arts organizations and
professional administrators make gestures toward equity all the time, but
Risser actually does the work. Not because it’s a grant requirement, not for
optics, but for the real reason why it matters: it gives all of us access to
deeper music. One that emerges not from the dominant narratives of taste,
but from what should be the most basic recognition: that everyone has
something to offer—and that sometimes the truest sounds are the ones we
help each other discover.
I’ve seen her live in four very different settings and listened to
countless recordings, and I keep coming back to this feeling: I want her to
stand for what music can mean—for me, and for the people of my time.
Apologies for the proselytizing––Eve and I are friends, so I hope I’m not
making her blush––but sometimes praise just needs to be sung.
May 8, 2025
Centro di Ricerca Musicale/ Teatro San Leonardo – Bologna
Simone Beneventi
Nine Bells (1979, Tom Johnson)
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| Simone Beneventi. Photo © Massimo Golfieri |
The performance of this landmark piece, devoted to the ringing of bells,
auspiciously took place shortly after the announcement of the new pope and
the massive bell of the Basilica di San Petronio rang out over Bologna.
Though only marginally familiar with Tom Johnson’s music, I was instantly
mesmerized by this performance. Nine Bellsrequires the performer to
move through a 3x3 grid of bells, their path dictated by a series of
geometric patterns. Each of the nine movements centers on one bell, though
others are always involved.
What struck me first—more than the sound—was the choreography. The physical
movement through space, the navigation of proximity and avoidance, created
a new kind of listening. The performer often passes bells without striking
them, leading to a beautiful tension of anticipation and deferral. As the
audience sees the performer approach a bell, we expect the
strike—but are often denied. This produces the illusion of a sound that
never arrives, even as the reverberations of earlier notes still hang in
the air. You begin to feel sounds that aren’t there as vividly as those
that are. Hallucination can be good for you.
Simone Beneventi’s choice of bells––many elements are left to the
performer’s discretion––was a set of golden rectangular sheets in various
sizes: they resembled oversized book covers. Depending on the lighting
(also meticulously designed by Beneventi in collaboration with the superb
AngelicA technical team), they swung in the air alternating between color
and darkness, bending the air like the opening and closing of a book. His
movements were both central and critical: deliberate footsteps punctuated by
everything from moderate walking to dervish-like spinning, swift jogging to
Byzantine threading. Each movement of the composition––“movement” being
literal here, in true Johnsonian spirit––also introduced a new mallet,
further varying the timbral and textural palette. Despite the simplicity of
the setup, the sonic range was surprisingly broad, thanks to the
interaction of overtones and the piece’s focused largesse.
The final movement, focused on softness, was especially powerful. Most
mallets struck near the bells’ edges, producing delicate, hovering tones.
Often, Beneventi would approach a bell with unmistakable intent—only to
withdraw and head in another direction. These non-strikes carried as much
weight as any sound. I found myself reflecting on decision-making itself:
all the near-misses, the paths not taken, the false starts—and then:
thwack!
There it is, the boom that was inevitable all along.
May 9, 2025
Centro di Ricerca Musicale/ Teatro San Leonardo – Bologna
MILESDAVISQUINTETORCHESTRA!
Sylvain Darrifourcq, drums
Valentin Ceccaldi, cello
Xavier Camarasa, piano, prepared piano
Pierre Borel, alto sax
Emilie Škrijelj, accordion
Michael Thieke, clarinet
Stretchin’
I’ll admit it: this performance left me delightfully unmoored. It operates
simultaneously as a scientific research project and a musical ensemble—both
committed to exploring asynchronization: the art of not playing in sync
with those around you. It started innocently, each musician looping small
rhythmic fragments. To the ear, it felt inviting—simple, even. But soon, it
revealed itself as a dense, swirling field of competing tempi, each
musician improvising within tight, shifting constraints. There’s no score.
No conductor. Just structure, instinct, and timing. (I suspect there are
some composed cues built in, but I couldn’t tell for sure. There’s
a documentary
that provides the background for the project, but honestly, I’m glad I
didn’t watch it beforehand.)
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| MILESDAVISQUINTETORCHESTRA! Photo © Massimo Golfieri |
The band’s name invokes Miles Davis, which the press release dismisses as a
play on on how marketing works: symbolic material meant to distract us from
what really matters. Maybe so. Still, I couldn’t help but recall Davis’
Second Great Quintet—with Ron Carter, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and
Tony Williams—and their deep dives into temporal elasticity within an
explicitly jazz context on tracks like “Nefertiti,” “Agitation” and “Stuff.”
Coincidence? Influence? Just my brain chasing ghosts? Noticeably, there is
no trumpet in this group. Though in one moment Thieke’s mouthpiece-free
clarinet spumed moisture-tinctured breathiness, conjuring the shadow of a
trumpeter clearing a spit valve.
Trying to isolate “moments” in this performance doesn’t quite work—though I
have to mention Škrijelj’s fingernails rapping on her accordion’s casing,
instantly evoking the crackle of Black Cat fireworks snapping on the summer
pavement of my youth. But unlike a lot of improvisation, this performance
wasn’t about moments: it was about entering a sonic time-space unlike
anything else. Conversely, perhaps we’re always living inside some
desynchronized time-space, and this music simply magnifies it.
%20MILESDAVISQUINTET-Ph.Massimo%20Golfieri%C2%A9.jpg) |
Sylvain Darrifourcq. Photo © Massimo Golfieri
|
I’d like to put it more poetically, but this performance was a mindfuck. In
the best possible way. Sixty minutes of astonishing untogetherness,
seemingly from A Swirl Beyond. It was hard to know where or how to listen,
like being inside a cracked kaleidoscope of rhythm and intent. (I did think
of Milford Graves and Sunny Morgan’s
Percussion Ensemble, where
polyrhythms overlap and erupt with interlocking energy. But this felt more
like temporal freefall, each player spiraling on their own axis. The
cohesion wasn’t in shared propulsion, but in the sheer tension of
divergence.)
The collective sound tempted me like I was on the edge of a black hole,
attracting me to get further and further within. Seductive yet
impenetrable, no matter how deeply I plunged I couldn’t access the root.
What a beautifully forbidding siren. The essence of incomprehensibility
that seemed like the center of what my experience was orbiting also felt
like a shoutout to the integrity of the inexplicable, as if the unknowable
deserves not just attention, but reverence. The black hole beckons us all:
uniquely, commonly.
They stopped on a dime after an hour and I was happily wobbly.
~~
With a third of the festival now underfoot, I feel justified in my years of
ogling the program from afar. Even factoring in my ambivalence regarding
Chatham, the bulk of the performances have attained supreme heights of
specificity and transcendence. The one thing I didn’t grasp from afar,
simply perusing the lists of events, was how much focus each show is given:
only one event per night. What this sacrifices in terms of a carnivalesque
atmosphere of abundance within a short time-span, it makes up for in the
space it allows each performance to breathe and retain a level of autonomy
from the fray that intrudes on all our lives. Here’s to one third of
thirty-five: eleven and two thirds, a number that refuses to resolve neatly
into wholeness, a resistance to integer form that mirrors how truth often
eludes complete capture – there is always a remainder, something that
exceeds our understandings, our categories, our definitions.
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