ConTEmporanea Music Festival
10/11/12 October
Palazzo Te
Curated by Leonardo Zunica
We live in an era in which the impact of technology on daily life is becoming increasingly crucial. The constant interaction between humans and the new frontiers of technology (between human and nonhuman) has changed the way we relate to the world, in a context that opens up philosophical, economic, political, environmental, and artistic reflections perhaps only imaginable in the science fiction of a few decades ago.
In the field of music, technological development has played a leading role in the foundation of new poetics. We find examples of intertwining the field generally defined as post-human and those creative processes that, as American scholar Douglas Burrett emphasizes in “Experimenting the Human, Art, and Music in the Contemporary Post-Human,” pose horizons in which technology can radically change (or, in fact, has already changed) the way we experience and create music, “in its inherent interdisciplinary involvement in science and technology.” As early as 1965, with Music for Solo Performer, Alvin Lucier (1931-2021) requested that a performer be fitted with electrodes that detected electrical impulses in the brain, which would then activate percussion instruments (you can still see the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIPU2ynqy2Y).
As recently as 2004, Pauline Oliveros (1932-2016), an American composer and a central figure in the development of post-war experimental and electronic music, attentive to contemporary social changes, wondered how such an application of technology could influence “future human values”.ConTEmporanea is a musical festival that brings together a galaxy of deeply human voices from the late 20th century and the current one. These voices, rising from now-classic composers such as Americans Alvin Lucier and Steve Reich, Poland’s Krzystof Penderecky, Finland’s Kaja Saariaho, Britain’s Jonathan Harvey and David Lang, and from a generation of musicians (many of them Italian) born on the cusp of the 21st century, courageously entering a world dominated by mainstream music culture and profound social contradictions, tell us something about the metamorphoses of the human condition, in a sonic landscape of exploration and reflection, depth and wonder. or even of “love and rage,” that rhythm of the heart that, according to Donna Haraway, a key figure in post-humanist philosophy, characterizes the inspiration of the work of Isaac Julien, a London-based artist and filmmaker whose new installation, All that changes you, Methamorphosis, commissioned for the five hundredth anniversary of Palazzo TE, is the spectacular context within which this exhibition aims to move and dialogue around humanity and its changing forms.
THE PROGRAM
October 10, from 9:00 PM,
Sala dei Cavalli
- Carlo Sampaolesi \ accordion and electroacoustic devices
Dmitri Kourliandski (1976)
Shiver (2010)
Alvin Lucier
Music for Accordion with Slow Sweep Pure Wave Oscillators (1993)
Marco Baldini (1986)
Fuochi (first part) (2024)
Rebecca Saunders (1967)
Flesh for accordion solo with recitation (2018)
Marco Baldini
Fuochi (second part) - Bruna Di Virgilio \ piano and electronics
David Lang (1957)
from Memory Pieces: wed, grind (1992)
Missy Mazzoli (1980)
Isabelle Eberhardt Dreams of Pianos for piano and electronics (2007)
Steve Reich (1936)
6 pianos (1973)
October 11, from 9:00 PM,
Sala dei Cavalli
- Nicola Baroni \ cello and electronics
Giovanni Battista Degli Antoni (1636-1698)
Ricercata nr 2
Krzysztof Penderecki (1933 – 2020)
Capriccio for Siegfried Palm / Sarabanda JSBach in memoriam
Johathan Harvey (1939-2012)
Curve with plateaux (2016)
Kajia Saariaho (1952-2023)
Petals for cello and live electronics (1988)
Nicola Baroni
The Wish to be a Red Indian for cello and interactive digital system - Icarus vs Muzak
Marco Lazzaretti \ Martino Mora \ Matteo Rovatti percussion
Daniele Incerti keyboard
Javier Alvarez (1956-2023)
Temazcal for percussion and electroacoustic sounds (1984)
Davide Spina (1997)
Digital Solitude for percussion, keyboard and multimedia
Bruce Hamilton (1966)
Interzones for vibraphone and electronics
October 12, from 9:00 PM,
Sala dei Cavalli
- SNAPSHOT
LAB-ECHOES
Alma Napolitano \ violin
Antonio Macaretti \ accordion
Annette Schlünz (1964)
Labyrinthe 2a (2016)
Francesco Del Nero
Amore arido (2022)
Antonio Macaret (1982)
Tra pensieri (2025)
Jonatan Sersam (1986)
Liebeslied (2022)
Denis Zardi
Unescape room (2025)
A2 Abd El Monim
Dark clouds (2022) - COD DANZA
LA MER Requiem for a vanished sea
Choreography and concept: Chiara Olivieri
Dance: Adele Piscitelli \ Alessandro Marconcini \ Federica Poma
Marco Bissoli \ Zagana Capilupi
Music: C. Debussy, T. Takemitsu, S. Davachi, G. Ligeti, M. Levi