Carillon Concert with Electronics

Concert as part of the festival of electronic music "Inventionen 2005"

July 3, 2005 at 3 p.m.

Jeffrey Bossin, Carillonneur, Berlin

Electronics: Folkmar Hein, Thomas Schneider and Arne Vierck

Electronic Studio of the Technical University of Berlin

 

Program

 

I.

Acariciando lo áspero (2005) World premiere    Mario Verandi

 

II.

Come un acciar che non ha macchia alcuna - Studio sulla luna da Ludovico Ariosto (2005) World premiere     Lucia Ronchetti  

 

III.

Vox Veterrima (1988)     Ricardo Mandolini

World premiere of the composer's new revised version

 

Organized by CarillonConcertsBerlin in cooperation with DAAD and the Electronic Studio of the Technical University of Berlin

and with the support of the  Haus der Kulturen der Welt and the Initiative Neue Musik Berlin e.V.

Lucia Ronchetti was born in 1963 in Rome, Italy and studied piano, composition and electronic music in Rome with Sylvano Busotti and Salvatore Sciarrino and in Paris with Gérard Grisey and François Lésure and computer music at the Paris IRCAM studio. From 1987 to 1998 she was the director of the Festival Animato in Rome. Ronchetti was awarded many grants and prizes including the Ciré Interna­tional des Arts, Paris; Akademie Schloß Solitude, Stuttgart, as Artist in Residence of the Mac Dowell Colony, Peterborough, USA, and as Composer in Residence of the Forums Neues Musiktheater of the Staatsoper Stuttgart. In 2005 she was guest of the Berlin Artists Program of the DAAD. In 1997 she worked in the Electronic Studio of the Technical University of Berlin and in 1999 in the Studio for Electroacoustic Music of the Akademie der Künste Berlin-Brandenburg. Im August 2004 wurde  Her composition Il sonno di Atys for viola and computer music which was commissioned by the Experimental Studio of the Heinrich-Strobel-Stiftung of the Südwestrundfunk was premiered in Darmstadt in 2004.

 

Mario Verandi was born in 1960 in San Nicolas, Buenos Aires, Argentina, studied music and computer technology from 1979 to 1985 in Buenos Aires and Rosario, Argentina and from 1986 to 1989 in Barcelona, Spain in the Phonos Electroacoustic Music Studio. He lived in London from 1992 to 2000 and in 2001 he was awarded a Ph.D in compo­sition by the University of Birmingham, England. From 2003 to 2004 he lectured at the Free University of Berlin. Verandi was Composer in Residence at the Studio of La Muse en Circuit in Paris, the Césaré Studio de Création Musicale in Reims, the ZKM in Karlsruhe and the Cuenca Electroacoustic Studio in Spain. In 2000 Verandi was guest of the Berlin Artists Program of the DAAD. He was awarded many grants and prizes including the Bourges International Electroacoustic Music Award in France, the Musica Nova Award in Prague, the CIEJ Musics Electronics Award in Barcelona, the Prix Ars Electronica in Linz, the Stockholm Electronic Art Award, the SGAE Electroacoustic Music Award (Spain) and the ZKM-Composi­tion-Prize at the European Bell Festival in 2004. Verandi's works include electroacoustic music, instrumen­tal pieces, installations and music for dance, films and the theatre as well as for radios. The New York label EMF (Electronic Music Foundation) produced a CD of Verandis music called Distant Shores (2001). www.marioverandi.de


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   Ingrid Beirer and Lucia Ronchetti 
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Mario Verandi, Jeffrey Bossin and  Lucia Ronchetti
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Folkmar Hein and
Arne Vierck at the computer
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Program booklet for the electronic music festival Inventionen 2005

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Excerpt from Acariciando lo àspero by Mario Verandi



 

    Lucia Ronchetti's piece for carillon and electronics Come un acciar che non ha macchia alcuna – Studio sulla luna da Ludovico Ariosto is based on a poem by the Italian writer Ludovico Ariosto about a phantastic journey to the moon on the back of a griffen. Besides the electronics excerpts of Ariosto's poem are read out loud as part of the piece. The carillon part starts with a single low tone which is repeated at certain intervals. This is followed by a few chromatic candenza-like fast descending figures. The piece reaches its climax in a passage which at first descends until it reaches a dynamic highpoint on the lowest bells followed by a number of  fast ascending chromatic runs each made of three notes. Then a figure made of the two notes b1 and c2 is continuously repeated at certain intervals, at first accompanied by a descending tremolando and then by two cadenza-like figures consisting of a continuously repeated row of a few tones close to each other. At the end of the piece a chromatic scale made of halfnotes  descends to the lowest note of the carillon accompanied by short figures like fragments of cadenzas which gradually release the tension and bring the piece to a close. The electronics consist of very low and very high bell sounds and whistling noises which are repeated one at a time several times and are always  accompanied by a long drawn out diffuse mixture of soft sounds which slowly die away. During this excerpts from Ariosto's poem are read out in a softly whispering voice. The electronics give the piece the character of an unreal, ghostly fairytale.

      Mario Verandi's piece Acariciando lo áspero for carillon and electronics has three short movements. The electronics use some material from the piece Bellscape which Verandi composed for the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie in Karlsruhe and of recordings of bells he made in Barcelona, Berlin and Birmingham as well as recordings of the bells of the Carillon in Berlin-Tiergarten from the sound archives of the Electronic Studio of the Technical University of Berlin. The electronics in Acariciando lo áspero are very transparent and are heard during almost the entire piece. The title translates as „Caressing something rough“ and refers to the playing of glissandi on a piano keyboard, i.e. of producing impure, rough sounds using a gentle movement of the hand. Thus the work consists of light, soft, diffuse, long drawn out and sometimes rising and falling sounds occasionally accompanied by single bell tones and trills. The carillon plays short motives, phrases, figures, runs, arpeggios, intervals or chords in short irregular intervals. The carillon and electronics engage in a dialogue and, as in the case of the works by Giannotti, Osborn and Ronchetti the carillonneur has to keep an eye on the stopwatch while playing from the score. If Osborn's Elevation is the ideal beginner's piece for carillon and electronics, then the three short easy movements of Acariciando lo áspero represent a somewhat more difficult example of this type of piece due to the fact that the carillon part consists of much more complex and lengthy figures than those in Elevation and the carilllonneur has to play exactly together with the electronics.