Instrumentalists

Graduate in Pianoforte, Franco Degrassi attended the summer courses of music informatics at the CSC (Centro di Sonologia dell'Università degli Studi) of Padua in 1985. During the Eighties he realized, on one of the first home computer synthesizers, a software for controlling additive synthesis in real time from a C64 alphanumeric keyboard (CIM, Music Informatics Colloquy, Rome 1988). He has dealt with computer assisted composition at the Physics Department of Bari University (CIM, Cagliari 1989 and "Musique et Assistence Informatique" Colloquy, Marseilles 1990) and has also collaborated in researching the application of neural networks to sound (Journal of New Music Research, 1994). He experimented one of the first devices for hard disk recording on p.c., realizing a software for the management in real time of the recording and replay of previously sampled sounds (CIM, Bologna 1995) which was utilized in a concert in duo with Michele Lomuto, trombone. He applied the results of this last experience also in research work on interaction during which he realized small-scale virtual sound environments (Artmedia, Salerno 1992; Culture dei Mari, Matera 1996; Imaginary Landscape, Milan 1993, etc.). He has practiced electroacoustic improvisation in duo first with trombonist Michele Lomuto ("Il Coretto" Festival, Bari 1994, Concerti per gli Amici, Fiesole 1994, etc.), publishing a CD (Tecnopolis, Bari 1992), and subsequently with pianist Gianni Lenoci (Sublingual Record, Boston - Audible Method, San Francisco 1999; Zeitgeist Gallery, Boston - New Music Circle, St. Louis - Experimental Music Gestival, Big Sur 2001), publishing in this case two CDs (ASC, Manchester 1999 and ANTS, Rome 2003). He has taught and lectured on music informatics at Bari University and Monopoli Conservatorio and has also held courses of professional training organized by the Puglia region.
Despite these multiple activities he has always continued the compositional application of acousmatic music: his most recent works have been performed during the course of Inmedia (Ann Arbor USA 2002); Primavera en la Habana (Cuba 2002); Maxis (Sheffield, GB 2002 and Leeds, GB 2003); Aujourd'hui Musiques (Perpignan, France 2002); Concerti della Domenica (Pescara 2004); Futura (Crest, France 2005).
Since 2002, the year in which he attended a stage at the Futura Festival (organized by the French association Motus), Degrassi has devoted himself exclusively to composition, sound projection and acousmatic performance. Mindful as always of the cultural needs of southern Italy, he set up at Bari (in close collaboration with Denis Dufour and Jonathan Prager of the Motus Association) one of the first Italian systems for projecting sound according to the model of the French-speaking acousmonium, founding and directing an annual festival of acousmatic music (Silence 20...) which had its third edition in 2005.