The Bow is Bent and Drawn

Nicola Ferrari

Music Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression

• Year: 2008
• Location: Genova, Italy

Abstract:

Program notes: Based on the installation "Mappe per Affetti Erranti", designed and developed by Antonio Camurri, Corrado Canepa, Nicola Ferrari, Gualtiero Volpe texts from Edmund Spenser's The Faire Queen and William Shakespeare's King Lear with support of EU ICT Project SAME. The bow is a theatrical mise-en-scene of the installation Mappe per Affetti Erranti. During the Science Festival 2007, as a preparatory work for the EU ICT Project SAME on active listening (www.sameproject.org), the audience was invited to explore and experience a song by John Dowland (see the paper on these proceedings by Camurri et al). The audience could walk inside the polyphonic texture, listen to the singles parts, change the expressive quality of musical interpretation by their movement on the stage of Casa Paganini analysed with EyesWeb XMI. Aesthetically, the most interesting result consists in the game of hiding and revealing a known piece. The idea could be matched with the classical theatrical topos of recognition. So, the musical potentiality of the 'interactive performance' of a prerecorded music becomes a new dramaturgical structure. Roberto Tiranti and his madrigalistic group recorded, under the supervision of Marco Canepa, different anamorphic interpretations of a bachian choral. Thanks to the interactive application developed with EyesWeb XMI, the group of dancers conducted by the choreographer Giovanni Di Cicco, mix and mould the recorded music material in real time. At the same time, the live sound of the vocal group explores the whole space of Casa Paganini, as a global (both real and imaginary) musical instrument. In a metamorphic game where, according to Corrado Canepa's compositive lesson, electronic and acoustic technologies merge and interchange their specificity, this interactive score of losing and finding, multiplying and distillating the ancient bachian palimpsest tries to tell the dramatic history of King Lear, the most tragic western figure of difficulty to reach the affects you possess without being able to know or express. About the performers: Nicola Ferrari was born in 1973. He studied composition with Adriano Guarnieri and took his degree at 'G. B. Martini' Conservatory in Bologna. He took his Master Degree and PhD from the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy at University of Genoa. Since 2005 he is a member of the staff of the InfoMus Lab. For many years he directed the 'S.Anna' polyphonic choir. He wrote scores for theatrical performances. Vocalists - Roberto Tiranti (tenor and vocal conductor), Valeria Bruzzone (alto), Chiara Longobardi (soprano), Edoardo Valle (bass) Dancers - Giovanni Di Cicco (choreography), Luca Alberti, Filippo Bandiera, Nicola Marrapodi Recording engineer and music consultant - Marco Canepa Sound Engineers - Corrado Canepa (director), Chiara Erra (assistant) EyesWeb interactive systems design - Paolo Coletta, Barbara Mazzarino, Gualtiero Volpe

Citation:

BibTeX Entry:

  @inproceedings{nime2008-music-Ferrari2008,
 abstract = {Program notes:
Based on the installation "Mappe per Affetti Erranti", designed and developed by Antonio Camurri, Corrado Canepa, Nicola Ferrari, Gualtiero Volpe texts from Edmund Spenser's The Faire Queen and William Shakespeare's King Lear with support of EU ICT Project SAME.
The bow is a theatrical mise-en-scene of the installation Mappe per Affetti Erranti. During the Science Festival 2007, as a preparatory work for the EU ICT Project SAME on active listening (www.sameproject.org), the audience was invited to explore and experience a song by John Dowland (see the paper on these proceedings by Camurri et al). The audience could walk inside the polyphonic texture, listen to the singles parts, change the expressive quality of musical interpretation by their movement on the stage of Casa Paganini analysed with EyesWeb XMI. Aesthetically, the most interesting result consists in the game of hiding and revealing a known piece. The idea could be matched with the classical theatrical topos of recognition. So, the musical potentiality of the 'interactive performance' of a prerecorded music becomes a new dramaturgical structure.
Roberto Tiranti and his madrigalistic group recorded, under the supervision of Marco Canepa, different anamorphic interpretations of a bachian choral. Thanks to the interactive application developed with EyesWeb XMI, the group of dancers conducted by the choreographer Giovanni Di Cicco, mix and mould the recorded music material in real time. At the same time, the live sound of the vocal group explores the whole space of Casa Paganini, as a global (both real and imaginary) musical instrument. In a metamorphic game where, according to Corrado Canepa's compositive lesson, electronic and acoustic technologies merge and interchange their specificity, this interactive score of losing and finding, multiplying and distillating the ancient bachian palimpsest tries to tell the dramatic history of King Lear, the most tragic western figure of difficulty to reach the affects you possess without being able to know or express.

About the performers:
Nicola Ferrari was born in 1973. He studied composition with Adriano Guarnieri and took his degree at 'G. B. Martini' Conservatory in Bologna. He took his Master Degree and PhD from the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy at University of Genoa. Since 2005 he is a member of the staff of the InfoMus Lab. For many years he directed the 'S.Anna' polyphonic choir. He wrote scores for theatrical performances.

Vocalists - Roberto Tiranti (tenor and vocal conductor), Valeria Bruzzone (alto),
Chiara Longobardi (soprano), Edoardo Valle (bass)
Dancers - Giovanni Di Cicco (choreography), Luca Alberti, Filippo Bandiera, Nicola Marrapodi
Recording engineer and music consultant - Marco Canepa
Sound Engineers - Corrado Canepa (director), Chiara Erra (assistant)
EyesWeb interactive systems design - Paolo Coletta, Barbara Mazzarino, Gualtiero Volpe},
 address = {Genova, Italy},
 author = {Nicola Ferrari},
 booktitle = {Music Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression},
 editor = {Roberto Doati},
 month = {June},
 publisher = {Casa Paganini},
 title = {The Bow is Bent and Drawn},
 year = {2008}
}