25/01/2016

h.21 Auditorium San Fedele

Barry Truax
Riverrun

Bernard Parmégiani / Andrew Quinn:
De Natura Sonorum

1. Incidences / Résonances 
2. Accidents / Harmoniques 
3. Géologie Sonore 
4. Dynamique De La Résonance 
5. Étude Élastique 
6. Conjugaison Du Timbre 
7. Incidences / Battements 
8. Natures Éphémères 
9. Matières Induites 
10. Ondes Croisées 
11. Pleins Et Déliés 
12. Points Contre Champs

Acousmatic interpretation: Dante Tanzi and Giovanni Cospito

In collaboration with S/V/N/

On the opening night of the INNER_SPACES 2016 review, two fundamental works of the contemporary electronic musical repertoire will be presented: Riverrun (1986) by Canadian Barry Truax and De Natura Sonorum (1975) by Bernard Parmégiani. Riverrun is the piece that has historically opened a new technical and compositional groove in the history of electronic music, that of granular synthesis in real time, through which various fragments (“grains”) of sound agglomerate and unite to compose a sound mass heterogeneous and constantly evolving. To this generative method, Barry Truax has associated the metaphor of the river, taken from Finnegans Wake by James Joyce, whose strength is based on the accumulation of innumerable and tiny droplets of water. The fundamental paradox of granular synthesis consists in the fact that starting from very simple “grains” of sound we arrive at very rich and powerful sound textures. At the beginning of the work, the accumulation starts from single “drops” of sound that gradually multiply in an energetic broadband structure. All Riverrun sounds were generated with real-time synthesis by the DMX-1000 Digital Signal Processor, up to a maximum density of 2375 grains / second. 

The second part of the concert presents De Natura Sonorum, a major work by Bernard Parmégiani, with visual interaction in videomapping by Andrew Quinn, completing an ideal diptych after presenting La Création du monde last year, the other masterpiece of the French pioneer of acousmatic music. Composed of twelve studies on the nature of sound and the relationships between them, De Natura Sonorum constitutes a real genealogical analysis of the essence of timbres and acoustic vibrations. The Australian multimedia artist, after the acclaimed performance of the last edition, will give structures and symbolic depth to the imagery of the imposing sound frescoes created by Parmégiani, elaborating a visual representation that traces, in its kaleidoscopic formation, the origin of the world of sounds . “With De Natura Sonorum, a new phase of my production begins, after trying to connect the sound material to the form of its evolution. I dwell on the writing of sounds, these sounds of which the ink, one could say, is extracted from all the subjects that I try to combine, compare, with the aim of observing nature ” (B. Parmégiani)