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AGOSTINO DI SCIPIO The six works on this CD are selections from Agostino Di Scipio's music for strings and live electronics. Their textured sonic material derives from a carefully crafted encounter (or collision?) of different technologies - from the mechanics of traditional violin making to real-time computer processing or analog devices of various kinds (microphones and loudspeakers in precisely studied spatial and functional relationships with the instruments and the concert room). Di Scipio explores advanced playing techniques - both known and specially researched - to capture the haptic energy of tiny gestures and their powdery sound residues. For him, however, the instruments are not simply there to Sounds to produce; you can also do the electronic transformation of these sounds check, so that the instrumental gesture ultimately influences or even drives the digital processing. The sound result in turn affects the gesture. A logic of feedback enlivens both the details and the layered structure of the music. The concert space also plays an active role in the performance of Di Scipio's works, as the acoustics and background noise are seamlessly integrated into the musical fabric as a source of both expressive and structural developments. The performance becomes a web of interactions and interferences that correspond to the environment, thus determining a kind of »ecosystem«. Di Scipio himself speaks of an ecosystem - not as a metaphor, but as an operational idea. His musical world may evoke a whole range of sound images, whether they are naturalistic or not; Ultimately, however, it presents itself to us as a dynamic reality that deals with the changing Situation, in which interpreters and listeners meet, must also change. This is an authentic kind of "chamber music", but it shows that the "chamber" today is a hybrid, thoroughly technological environment... VIOLAZIONI DELLA PRESENZA (Violations of Presence) is the latest work in this selection. It was composed for Lorenzo Derinni and Davide Gagliardi, who premiered the work in Graz in April 2018. In the three main sections, the violin engages in a computer-controlled audio feedback loop, resulting in various resonances in the concert space. Computer operations are controlled using the open source audio programming language PURE DATA. The three sections are connected with sound fragments coming from outside the concert space. This recording took place in the CUBE, a performance space at the IEM (Institute for Electronic Music and Acoustics at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz). The outside noise comes from the stairwell there, which is quite reverberant (you can hear people going up and down the stairs and elevator doors opening and closing with a strange ringing noise). 2 SOUND PIECES WITH REPERTOIRE STRING MUSIC (Two Sound Pieces with String Repertoire) can be played by two (or more) strings. It was commissioned by Federico Placidi and Matteo Milani and premiered in December 2012 by Èdua Zádory and Ana Topalovic at the Spazio O' (Milan). The KYMA computer music workstation was used to produce self-regulating feedback and "granular" morphs of the instrumental sounds. Each of the two halves can be described as the building and breaking down of a complex sonic structure, with different layers emerging from the delicate balance between instruments, apparatus and room acoustics. The performers are asked to take any selection from their respective instrument's repertoire and use it as a template with familiar fingering patterns so that they can focus more on the unusual bowing and percussion techniques the composer calls for. They also use ordinary digital audio players to play any recording of the selected repertoire into the body of the instrument, which is a resonator with special sound properties. In this way, faint memories of this repertoire are drawn into the performance process. Di Scipio's first string quartet 5 INTERAZIONI CICliche ALL DIFFERENZE SENSIBILI (5 circular and difference-sensitive interactions), was commissioned by the Federazione CEMAT (Rome) in 1997 and premiered by the Quartetto Prometeo in November 1998 at the Acquario Romano; the composer controlled the sound processing on the computer (KYMA). The premiere was part of a sound installation in which the sounds of the quartet were mixed with the acoustic environment of downtown Rome. The work was later recorded in St. Catherine's Church in L'Aquila. The computer processes are based on the reactions of the room to certain instrumental gestures. The performers, in turn, change their playing style in response to the computer's response. Some of the new playing techniques Di Scipio experimented with in this work were developed while working on his String Quartet No.3 silent pieces, 2005–09). PLEX was composed for Stefano Scodanibbio and premiered at the Festival Musica Verticale in Rome in November 1991. The work differs from the other pieces on this CD in that the double bass player plays back material (i.e. not Live-Electronics) plays. Nevertheless, the recorded sounds clearly anticipate the "sound dust" of Di Scipio's later works. The score also includes a small selection of instrumental gestures and various ways of playing them - a kind of improvisational exercise that reappears in later works. The four-channel feed was produced at the Centro di Sonologia Comutazionale (University of Padua). While some sounds were synthesized using the Music360 audio programming language (for mainframe computing), the source material was mainly created using PC programs written by the composer to synthesize a single double bass sample (a pizzicato on the open E string). segment, stretch and dissect. It was probably the first application of "granular processing" to the PC! Di Scipio was already researching granular synthesis in 1987. Two years after plex, as visiting professor at Simon Fraser University (Burnaby, Vancouver), he continued to experiment with granular methods together with Barry Truax. DUE DI UNO (Zwei von Einem) was composed in 2002 for Haesung Choe (violin) and Antonio Politano (soprano recorder), who premiered the work in February 2003 in the Grande Salle of the Lausanne Conservatoire. Dedicated to the composer Horacio Vaggione, this little piece consists of ten short sections (each about 40 seconds long) and a coda. Each section consists of just a single line played by both instruments; due to the natural differences between the two instruments, this line often splits into two layers of sound. This division is then multiplied by the computer through various sampling and editing processes. The sound processing algorithms follow the small deviations of the two instruments as perceived by the computer. The musical result varies between dull and mechanical on the one hand and somewhat bird- or insect-like on the other. VEILLE, SURVEILLE was sketched during Di Scipio's DAAD scholarship in Berlin (2005) and was commissioned by Paolo Pachini and the Elastic3 (Eva Reiter, viola da gamba; Tom Pauwels, steel-string acoustic guitar with e-bow; Paolo Pachini, computer). The premiere took place in 2005 at the Transit Festival (Leuven). The work consists of five sections; at least three should be used in each performance. The recording for this CD was made in the composer's Berlin studio before the world premiere. Viola da gamba and guitar constantly monitor each other for overall balance across various textural changes. Anna Caveduri program:
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