XIII International Festival of Contemporary Music Moscow Forum
Russia — Italy: The Art of Perspective
8–14 December 2011
The Art of Perspective is the theme of the Thirteenth Moscow Forum festival of contemporary music, which this year is devoted to Italian and Russian music. Perspective is a look ahead, a view of the future; the art of perspective is the ability to shape that future. The Moscow Forum will above all present the young generation of Russian and Italian composers who are defining that future. The festival will feature eleven world premieres and seventeen Russian premieres. Concerts will alternate with open lectures and master classes by composers and performers.
The musical marathon runs from 8 to 14 December, and its participants include such renowned groups as the two Italian ensembles Alter Ego and Xenia, as well as the Russian ensemble Studio for New Music. The Art of Perspective will also present very young Russian groups: the vocal ensemble Eidos, Kuku Group and an ensemble from Nizhny Novgorod with the telling name NoName.
Six Italian composers are coming to Moscow to present their new sound projects. But the art of perspective is not only sound: it is also experimental audiovisual compositions by Russian and Italian artists, which will be presented in a separate concert, Sound&Vision (Theatre Centre on Strastnoy, 11 December). The festival’s special guest is Ivan Fedele, one of the best-known composers in Italy today, who has written for the Studio for New Music the piece Deystviya, reflecting his Italian perception of Russia.
A special project within the Moscow Forum is devoted to the music of Luigi Nono: on the evening of 9 December the Russian premieres of two of his most important works will be given, and in the afternoon there will be a discussion of the philosophical, aesthetic and political ideas of this cult composer. The principal guest of the meeting will be the celebrated Soviet-and-anti-Soviet director Yuri Lyubimov who, in spite of resistance from the Soviet authorities, staged back in 1975, in the very heart of the Italian tradition — at La Scala — Nono’s radical opera “Al gran sole carico d’amore”, with texts by such political gurus as Marx, Lenin, Che Guevara and Castro, yet devoted to a “women’s theme”: the lives of the heroines of various revolutions, from Rosa Luxemburg to Haydée Santamaría. The well-known Italian composer Nicola Sani, author of a film about Nono, will also take part in the discussion.
The title “The Art of Perspective” also refers us to a remarkable period in Italian art, when artists, side by side with scientists, searched for new laws of composition attuned to the particularities of our visual and aural perception. It was in Italian Renaissance painting that parallel lines began to converge, and in choral compositions that independent voices increasingly merged into unified chords. From that moment the abstract, symbolic space of medieval imagery was transformed into a perceptual space, subject to our subjective sensory perception. In music, the free linearity of the melodic movement of individual voices came increasingly into agreement with clearly audible successions of chordal verticals. Interestingly, in Russia, for several more centuries, icon painting was governed by precisely the opposite principle — the law of “reverse perspective” and a symbolic rather than illusionistic logic of composition. Likewise in Russian music, chordal (partesny) polyphony became established only towards the end of the 17th century.
Curiously, it was precisely these characteristic features of the art of perspective that became one of the foundations of the Russian avant-garde at the beginning of the 20th century. Perhaps even today this “unequal balance” between the aesthetically sensuous and the symbolic-conceptualist principles largely determines the particular features of, and the differences between, Italian and Russian music — and perhaps also the perspectives for the art of our countries.
Vladimir Tarnopolsky, artistic director of the festival
The festival is held with the support of the Italian Cultural Institute in Moscow.
LIST OF EVENTS
8 December, Thursday
Festival opening
19:00, Rachmaninoff Hall of the Conservatory
Concert
Salvatore Sciarrino Introduzione all’oscuro (1981)
Edison Denisov Italian Songs (1964)
Franco Donatoni Lumen (1975)
Oleg Paiberdin Re-mix (2011, world premiere)
Raffaele Grimaldi Studio Cubico (2011, Russian premiere)
Alexander Khubeev Intonarumori (2011, world premiere)
Studio for New Music ensemble
Conductor — Honoured Artist of Russia Igor Dronov
9 December, Friday
12:00. Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, foyer
Opening of the exhibition “Luigi Nono 1924–1990. Maestro of Sounds and Silence”.
From the archives of the Luigi Nono Foundation in Venice
13:00, Conference Hall of the Conservatory
“Al gran sole carico d’amore”. Luigi Nono and Russia
Yuri Lyubimov on staging Nono’s opera at La Scala.
With the participation of Nuria Schoenberg-Nono and Nicola Sani
Screening of the opera (“Al Gran Sole Carico D’amore”, 1975, Teatro alla Scala, dir. Yu. Lyubimov)
Video materials courtesy of the archive department of the Italian broadcaster RAI
19:00, Rachmaninoff Hall of the Conservatory
Concert
Luigi Nono Fragmente – Stille, an Diotima for string quartet
Luigi Nono Das atmende Klarsein for choir, flute and electronics (1981–83)
Olga Bochikhina Fluttuazioni for string quartet (2007)
Anna Romashkova In aria for string quartet (2011, world premiere)
Faraj Karaev Postludia XI for piano, string quartet and offstage choir (2011)
Ivan Bushuev (flute)
Mona Khaba (piano)
EIDOS Chamber Choir
Artistic director and conductor — Andrey Kaplanov
Studio for New Music Quartet
Nikolai Khrust (electronics)
10 December, Saturday
12:00, Conference Hall of the Conservatory
Lecture-presentation: composer Ivan Fedele (Italy)
14:30, Conference Hall of the Conservatory
Lecture “Contemporary Music in Italy”: composer Nicola Sani (Italy)
17.30, Great Hall of the Union of Composers
Open Space: creative projects by young Russian composers:
Yu. Akbalkan, S. Baiterekov, V. Bychkov, B. Getselev, V. Gorlinsky, O. Gudachev, G. Dorokhov, V. Zatula, M. Buloshnikov, A. Shesterikova, M.Poleukhina, A.Pys. E. Rykova, B. Rysin, D. Selipanov, D. Khorov, K.Shirokov, A. Shmurak
Kuku Group
NoName Ensemble and others
Conductor — Vladimir Gorlinsky
11 December, Sunday
13.00, Conference Hall of the Conservatory
Master class for composers: Ivan Fedele (Italy)
19:00, Theatre Centre on Strastnoy
Concert: Sound&Vision
Luigi Ceccarelli pic with the help of two willing guys (2011, world premiere)
Vladimir Gorlinsky Bramputapsel #2 (2011, world premiere)
Luca Francesconi Strade parallele (2010, Russian premiere)
Alexey Nadzharov Argos (2011, world premiere)
Nicola Sani Lied 2 (2011, world premiere)
Alter Ego (Italy)
20:30, Theatre Centre on Strastnoy
Round table: Contemporary Music of Russia and Italy
12 December, Monday
12:00, Conference Hall of the Conservatory
Master class: Aldo Campagnari, violin (Alter Ego soloist)
13:30, Conference Hall of the Conservatory
Master class: Francesco Dillon, cello (Alter Ego soloist)
15:00, Conference Hall of the Conservatory
Master class: Paolo Ravaglia, clarinet (Alter Ego soloist)
16:30, Conference Hall of the Conservatory
Lecture on electronic music: composer Luigi Ceccarelli (Italy)
19:00, Rachmaninoff Hall of the Conservatory
Concert
Luigi Ceccarelli Birds for bass clarinet and tape (1995–2008)
Ivan Fedele Suite No. 3 for cello (2008)
Stefano Scodanibbio Ritorno a cartagena for bass flute (2001)
Salvatore Sciarrino Sonata III for piano (1987)
Franco Donatoni Argot for violin (1979)
Alexander Knaifel Lament for cello (1967)
Alter Ego (Italy)
20:00, Rachmaninoff Hall of the Conservatory
Concert
Bruno Maderna String Quartet (1946)
Azio Corghi Nocturnus Visus for solo clarinet (1999)
Alessandro Perini Pictorial Formula for string quartet (2011, world premiere)
Karlheinz Stockhausen Der Kleine Harlekin, dance movements for clarinet (1975)
Niccolò Castiglioni Romanza for string quartet (1990, Russian premiere)
Alexander Vustin Canto for string trio (1999)
Giacinto Scelsi String Quartet No. 5 (1988)
Nikolai Khrust Manifesto for basset horn, narrator and string quartet (2011, Russian premiere)
Xenia Ensemble (Italy)
Michele Marelli, clarinet, basset horn
David Livermore, narrator
13 December, Tuesday
12:00, Conference Hall of the Conservatory
Master class: Michele Marelli (clarinet, basset horn)
13:30, Conference Hall of the Conservatory
Master class: Oscar Pizzo, piano (Alter Ego soloist)
15:00, Conference Hall of the Conservatory
Master class: Manuel Zurria, flute (Alter Ego soloist)
17.00, Conference Hall of the Conservatory
Pre-concert meeting: Xenia Ensemble (Italy) and composer Stefano Pierini (Italy)
19:00, Rachmaninoff Hall of the Conservatory
Concert
Stefano Pierini (De)Cadenze quintet for clarinet and strings (2011, world premiere)
Giulio Castagnoli Canto antico for solo violin (2010, Russian premiere)
Alexander Knaifel EF Tre carte di visita del poeta for string trio (2009)
Alberto Colla The spiked and winding cold seahorn for basset horn (2000, Russian premiere)
Valentino Bucchi Soliloquios for solo viola (1976, Russian premiere)
Salvatore Sciarrino Quintettino for clarinet and strings (1976)
Michele Marelli, clarinet, basset horn
Xenia Ensemble (Italy)
20:00, Rachmaninoff Hall of the Conservatory
Concert
Fausto Romitelli Domeniche alla periferia dell’impero: prima domenica for bass flute, bass clarinet, violin and cello, (1995, Russian premiere)
Salvatore Sciarrino Trio No. 2 for violin, cello and piano (1987)
Emanuele Casale 5 for flute, clarinet and tape (2003, Russian premiere)
Riccardo Vaglini Serenade for five instruments (2006, Russian premiere)
Riccardo Nova Thirteen@13×8 terror generating deity for ensemble and tape (2005, Russian premiere)
Maurizio Pisati Ab sofort for flute and prepared piano (1990, Russian premiere)
Francesco Filidei Abaq for ensemble (2001, Russian premiere)
Fausto Romitelli Domeniche alla periferia dell’impero: seconda domenica for bass flute, bass clarinet, violin and cello (2000, Russian premiere)
Alter Ego (Italy)
14 December, Wednesday
12.00, Conference Hall of the Conservatory
“Who Needs Festivals of Contemporary Art?”
A meeting with Massimo Ongaro, director of the International Festival of Contemporary Music of the Venice Biennale
14.00, Conference Hall of the Conservatory
Screening of Nicola Sani’s biographical documentary “With Luigi Nono”, based on rare archive material (2000)
18.00, Conference Hall of the Conservatory
Pre-concert talk: Ivan Fedele, Yuri Vorontsov
Festival closing
19:00, Rachmaninoff Hall of the Conservatory
Concert within the project “Europe through Russian Eyes. Russia through European Eyes”
Ivan Fedele Deystviya (2011, world premiere)
Yuri Vorontsov Buffatore (2011, world premiere)
Alexey Sioumak Illusion of a Concert (2006)
Carlo Ciceri Volta (2009)
Vladimir Tarnopolsky Foucault’s Pendulum (2004)
Studio for New Music ensemble
Conductor — Honoured Artist of Russia Igor Dronov
The concert is supported by the European Union