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activities - sonora - 2003 - stuttgart

Stuttgart

02 April 2003


EAST AKA WEST


 

In Trance
by Riccardo Nova
world première

Icarus/Cantus Ensemble

Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart


Overclockd (Riccardo Nova and Max Viel): electronics

Fabrica Musica:
Andrea Molino - artistic director, conductor
Vidwan B. C. Manjunath - Mridangam, Kenukol
Vidwan Srihari Rangaswamy - Mridangam, Cangira, Tavil
Oliver Grimm - audio designer
Giorgio Collodet - technical director

FabricaVideo:
Riccardo Nova - concept and selection
Federica Palmarin - concept and selection
Aurora Sulli - editing

Collision of Worlds. Curiosity propels Riccardo Nova through the extremes of differing cultural worlds: antennae outstretched, he moves between the artificial parameters of differentiation found in contemporary European music, the highly complex and complicated rhythms of Indian music and, finally, the relentless pounding of the techno sound, which induces states of near trance. A world of sensory experience of sound and motion.

An evening with about 60 minutes of music without intermission. The principal idea is to explore and put into relation different musical idioms, different ways of perceiving/expressing musical time and space, in an attempt to discover complementarities, possibilities of integration, linguistic synergism.

Western tradition of learned music, composition technique, a great development of the ability to create/discover relations (harmonic/contrapuntal thinking), to develop and abstract an enormous expansion of the analytical possibilities that, by means of advanced technology, has enabled us to enter inside the acoustical reality, to work directly with the parameters that make up the timbre, to create/compose sound in a direct way. Compositional technique is thus intended as a means of unification, which abstracts and formalises the expressive peculiarities of apparently unrelated musical traditions.

Classical music from Southern India (Karnatika music), which has for ages developed a highly complex perception of time. An elaborate system of 35 Tala (rhythmic cycles) and the capacity to control simultaneously different metric subdivisions are at the basis of an experience of time that only as late as the second half of the twentieth century made its appearance in the Western world. A musician from Southern India can move away from the centre (the beginning of the time cycle) without ever losing the chance of coming back to it with immense force and effect, a continuous alternation of expectations that are satisfied/not satisfied.

Techno music on the contrary bases its efficacy on the continuous and obsessive "affirmation" of a rhythmic centre, which however allows a very efficient dramatic use of time suspensions, a use that is therefore opposed to the fulfilment or contrast of expectations given by the "flexibility" of Karnatika music. Techno dance creates a sort of perceptual "zero degree", a circular time that returns incessantly to the beginning, musical structures without conclusion that could continue forever the potent, obsessive, hypnotic groove and exploitation of the rhythmical potential of timbral transformations (spectral filtering meant to increase the efficacy of the grooves etc.). It's evident the enormous potential of interaction/complementarity between karnatika and techno music for ex.: the "rhythmic craftsmanship" of the Indian musician modulates timbres that are typical of techno music.

The text, selected and translated from Sankrit by professor Paolo Magnoni of the Cattolica University in Milan, will be a long list of names with which man in different periods and in different places has tried to address God and his various manifestations. Some parts of Sri Lalita sahasranama ("The thousand names of Lalita", a divinity which represents unity in multiplicity Brahama/Shiva/Vishnu), and some other texts taken from I Veda (a collection of all the sacred scriptures of the Indu tradition all written in Sanskrit).

The project is the result of the collaboration between Riccardo Nova and Fabrica creative staff which has given a large contribution to the realization of Riccardo's ideas.
Andrea Molino, head of Fabrica Musica department and artistic director of this project, will coordinate the work of the two Indians musicians, Vidwan B. C. Manjunath (Mridangam, Kenukol) and Vidwan Srihari Rangaswamy (Mridangam, Cangira, Tavil), Fabrica grant holders with the supervision of Riccardo Nova and the technical support of Oliver Grimm, Fabrica audio designer and Giorgio Collodet, technical director.

A video with images taken in India and Puglia by Federica Palmarin and edited by Aurora Sulli, both Fabrica researchers, illustrating religious ceremonies will be projected during the performance to supply visually the link existing between these two different musical traditions and to testify the importance music has in religious rituals.

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