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Giuseppe_Chiari_GalleriaOrlandoPietrasanta1

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Full immersion in Giuseppe Chiari’s work

 Thanks to the invitation of Mario Chiari, the son of the artist, I have the worderful opportunity to immerse myself in the work of Giuseppe Chiari.

I already knew Gesti sul Piano, his most famous and experimental work on the keyboard. Watching the video artworks of his hands, dialoguing as individual characters with the piano and with each other, left me enchanted and moved at the same time. I also had the feeling that this was the poetic output of a rigorous critical reflection, though.
It was correct; now I’m diving into critical essays, conceptual art statements, art books, photographic series of his performances, videos, recordings and finally, yes, scores (in standard, verbal, graphic notation) of this prolific composer, performer, artist welcomed by the Fluxus movement as well as by the conceptual art milieu.

In the occasion of his centennial (Chiari was born in Florence in 1926) several detailed books about him have been published, precious maps to navigate into his constantly-in-progress work.

This is the case with Gesti sul Piano, whose first score was written in 1962 and undergone many transformations, following the creativity of his author who became soon the performer of the piece (before him the dedicatee, Frederic Rzewski, and Giancarlo Cardini). From paper – verbal and graphic scores – to pictures and videos, from open composition to performance and improvisation, the life of this work left many different traces. Collecting them makes me feel as in a kind of treasure hunt – I’ll write more about this later.

And now it comes the funniest part: playing “with” Gesti sul piano. A playfully serious way of opening doors… what will be on the other side?

“The man is unaware that the keys exist to him / the keyboard is just a long white strip
he realized however that his hands and arms
can leave an imprint on the keyboard just as they would on sand
he realized
that his anger his anxiety his tension his rigidity
his apathy his tenderness would leave for a moment a furious tender imprint on the white keys…



he has never seen anyone play the piano
he cannot conceive that a single finger is meant for a single key“
Giuseppe Chiari, 1969


Playing with Giuseppe Chiari’s Gesti sul Piano

Front image: Photo from the exhibition “Party Chiari & Amicizie Fluxus” at Galleria Susanna Orlando – Pietrasanta, 2026

 



 


Conservatorio Boccherini Lucca

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Tenure position at Conservatorio Boccherini in Lucca, Tuscany

Some months ago – in the midst of intercontinental flights, various performances and little sleep, but much satisfaction – I won a competition for a tenure teaching position at Conservatorio Boccherini di Lucca, in Tuscany.
The competition tests were mainly consisting in piano performance and orchestra first-sight score reading. In fact, I’ll be working with Orchestra Conduction and Composition students, teaching them piano performance and orchestra score reading at the piano. It’s a subject I love, because it allows to sail the vast ocean of Western music repertoire, from the Middle Age to nowadays… a never-ending discovery and recreation.

In addition, Lucca is a real jewel, a fortified city of medieval architecture with a rich past still clearly visible walking the cobbled roads. The Conservatorio carries on a prestigious tradition – Boccherini, Puccini, Giani-Luporini, and many others have walked through these doors. My room overlooks the famous Torre dei Guinigi, with its roof garden of centuries-old holm oaks (see pictures).

Very much looking forward this new beginning of the academic year, eager to test my previous experience in this new environment that will accompany me in the coming years!

 


Sub Rosa release_Toniutti_header

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Fluxus review in Die Neue Zeitschrift für Musik

A nice new review out in prestigious Die Neue Zeitschrift für Musik n.2 of this year.
Stefan Fricke writes about Sub Rosa release of the two volumes of the Fluxus&NeoFluxus Collection vol.1 and vol.2 :

“[…] Congratulations also to those who want to hear and read this; there is much to discover. A colorful compilation […] a collector’s edition that does not conclusively cover the subject, but rather invites further, more in-depth searching, finding, and doing it yourself. […] Let’s get started.”

 


Agnese_Toniutti_Library_of_Congress

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Pre-concert talk at Library of Congress now on line

It’s on line the conversation held at the Library of Congress on June 3, 2025 before the concert for Lucia Dlugoszewski’s centennial at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C.It’s a 40 minutes conversation moderated by Libby Smigel, Dance curator at Library of Congress Music Division, with two of the closest collaborators of Lucia Dlugoszewski and Erick Hawkins – Katherine Duke and Louis Kavouras – plus scholar Dustin Hurt, who staged the two-day festival of Dlugoszewski’s music in Philadelphia last May, cellist Thomas Kraines from Daedalus Quartet and me.
As the website of the Library describes, “topics included the reconstruction of timbre piano scores, recreations of choreography, and bringing music and dance back to life using archival materials in the Library of Congress”; in addition, lovely anecdotes from everyday life with this extraordinary couple of artists help getting closer to their work and their vision of life and art.
Enjoy watching it here!




Agnese_Toniutti_su_Giancarlo Cardini_Quaderni di Octandre n.29 01 copia

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Writing about Giancarlo Cardini’s piano music published by Agenda

While I was in USA a copy of Cardini live – Quaderni di Octandre n.29, new publication by Agenda Produzioni in Bologna (IT), was delivered at my address. I contributed with an essay on Giancarlo Cardini’s piano pieces – the ones I performed on stage and / or recorded in Lento trascolorare (Da Vinci Classics, 2020).
The titles of Cardini’s pieces are often poetic and suggestive. I quote one of them in the title of my writing: Paesaggio marino al tramonto, con barca e grande nuvola nera (the translation sounds as “Sea landscape at sunset, with boat and big dark cloud”): a glance on piano compositions by Giancarlo Cardini. In fact the deep poetic inspiration that pervades Cardini’s music can be also found in the titles of his pieces and in his writings – a good sample of this is his artist book Soap bubbles – Bolle di sapone.
In the essay I try to find some recurrent aesthetic traits of Cardini’s creativity and root them in the analysis of the scores composed for his elective instrument, the piano. “Divagazioni intorno a tre canti dell’Euridice di Peri” (2013), “Paesaggio marino al tramonto con barca e nuvola nera” (1998), “Via del Fico, Firenze. Una piccola strada disadorna, silenziosa, quasi immota, arida e bella” (2011), “Tre momenti di sessualità infantile” (2007), “Terza Fantasia, ad Agnese Toniutti” (2018), “Foglie d’autunno lentamente trascolorano” (1983, rev. 2018), “Rituals for the Ryoanji Garden” (2012) and “Una notte d’inverno” are all mentioned and scrutinized.
The list of contributors to Cardini live, curated by musicologist Renzo Cresti, includes musicians, scholars and writers that worked and studied with Giancarlo Cardini; I am looking forward to read each essay, a way of celebrating him through words, music and heartfelt memories.




Agnese_Toniutti_Anna Clementi by D. Maestrutti-68 copia

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Review of “A.A.Clementi” performance for Le Salon Musical

Nice review coming after A.A.Clementi, the concert with Anna Clementi in Udine for Salotto Musicale Fvg on May, 29. Paolo Carradori for Le Salon Musical succeeded in the not easy task of depicting in words the explosive energy of the singer. Indeed it was fun both to play together pieces for voice and piano by Aldo Clementi, Erik Satie, John Cage, Mieko Shiomi and listen to her solo sparkling performances of pieces by Cage, Morton Feldman, Emanuele Casale, Dieter Schnebel, Yoko Ono. You can find the full review here (in italian).
Below some extracts translated in English and some nice pics here.

“Also of considerable interest are the two short works stimulated by the Joycian masterpiece Finnegan’s Wake. Toniutti flanks Clementi and on the closed piano used as an almost ancestral percussion she emphasizes, distributes interpunitions, accents behind the voice that, like a sound wave, flows legibly, detachedly, dreamily. […] Clementi […] gives us a pleasant and sparkling Je te veux on a text by the poet Henry Pacory. She is flanked by the piano with effective and engaging touch. In a few minutes we recall the singularity, the originality of the French composer. […] The evening closes with two Japanese composers Mieko Shiomi and Yoko Ono. Their works hark back to the art movement born in the 1960s and called Fluxus. Experimentalism, interdisciplinarity, improvisation, happenings, and performance aspects are its founding features. In an open vision where art is lived as a collective life experience against all conventions, the works presented by Clementi through actions, gestures, vocality, transport us to those years full of expectations and research. ” Paolo Carradori – Le Salon Musical




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Aldo Clementi in Udine, Lucia Dlugoszewski in Washington DC

Two performances coming up soon, one in Italy and one in US, celebrating the centennial of two composers, Aldo Clementi and Lucia Dlugoszewski. I’ll have the pleasure to perform with great musicians and dancers.

On Thursday May 29, 9 pm in Tavagnacco, Udine, at Moroso Design Outlet, organized by Salotto Musicale Fvg, I will play some duo pieces in the show of singer and performer (or actress of the voice, as she properly says) Anna Clementi. A. A. Clementi is the title of the event. Anna in fact is the talentuos daughter of Aldo Clementi, one of the main Italian composer of the after-war generation, and the concert is dedicated to his centennial. We will play pieces for voice and piano by Aldo Clementi, John Cage, Mieko Shiomi, Erik Satie and she will perform solos for voice by Emanuele Casale, Morton Feldman, Yoko Ono, Dieter Schnebel. Info and bookings. [Edit: pics below]

Soon after I will fly again to US. On Tuesday June 3, 8 pm in Washington DC at the Thomas Jefferson Building I will perform in a celebrative event organized by the Library of Congress. 
The (effortless) now: Dances of Erick Hawkins and Lucia Dlugoszewski will celebrate Lucia Dlugoszewski’s centennial, and the Erick Hawkins Dance Company-New York will be dancing the original dances by Hawkins created in a very close collaboration with the music by Lucia Dlugoszewski. Katherine Duke, director of the company, and myself spent several months to reconstruct the works from the original documentation. We made a first performance in Philadelphia a couple of weeks ago where I already had the priviledge of following the beatiful duets of dancers Jason Hortin and Hayley Meier in Here and Now With Watchers and the sparkling quartets in Cantilever. In this program I will also play with Min-Young Kim, top first violin of Daedalus Quartet, an intricate and captivating piece for violin and piano by H. Meltzer. The event is in collaboration with Bowerbird-Philadelphia.  Info and tickets [Edit: and pics below].

, ⬇️ Here are some pics from the performance with Anna Clementi, courtesy of Davide Maestrutti for Salotto Musicale Fvg, and below some from the performance at Library of Congress, Washington DC, for the centennial of Lucia Dlugoszewski with Min-Young Kim and Hawkins Dance Company, by Shawn Miller, Library of Congress.

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Min-Young Kim, on violin, and Agnese Toniutti, on piano, perform Harold Metzler’s “Kreisleriana” in the Coolidge Auditorium, June 3, 2025. Photo by Shawn Miller/Library of Congress.

Note: Privacy and publicity rights for individuals depicted may apply.
Min-Young Kim, on violin, and Agnese Toniutti, on piano, perform Harold Metzler’s “Kreisleriana” in the Coolidge Auditorium, June 3, 2025. Photo by Shawn Miller/Library of Congress.

Note: Privacy and publicity rights for individuals depicted may apply.
Min-Young Kim, on violin, and Agnese Toniutti, on piano, perform Harold Metzler’s “Kreisleriana” in the Coolidge Auditorium, June 3, 2025. Photo by Shawn Miller/Library of Congress.

Note: Privacy and publicity rights for individuals depicted may apply.
Hayley Meier and Jason Hortin of the Erick Hawkins Dance Company perform excerpts of “Here and Now With Watchers” with Agnese Toniutti on piano in the Coolidge Auditorium, June 3, 2025. Photo by Shawn Miller/Library of Congress.

Note: Privacy and publicity rights for individuals depicted may apply.
Jason Hortin of the Erick Hawkins Dance Company performs excerpts of “Here and Now With Watchers” with Agnese Toniutti on piano in the Coolidge Auditorium, June 3, 2025. Photo by Shawn Miller/Library of Congress.

Note: Privacy and publicity rights for individuals depicted may apply.
Hayley Meier of the Erick Hawkins Dance Company performs excerpts of “Here and Now With Watchers” with Agnese Toniutti on piano in the Coolidge Auditorium, June 3, 2025. Photo by Shawn Miller/Library of Congress.

Note: Privacy and publicity rights for individuals depicted may apply.
Hayley Meier and Jason Hortin of the Erick Hawkins Dance Company perform excerpts of “Here and Now With Watchers” with Agnese Toniutti on piano in the Coolidge Auditorium, June 3, 2025. Photo by Shawn Miller/Library of Congress.

Note: Privacy and publicity rights for individuals depicted may apply.
Jason Hortin of the Erick Hawkins Dance Company performs excerpts of “Cantilever” in the Coolidge Auditorium, June 3, 2025. Photo by Shawn Miller/Library of Congress.

Note: Privacy and publicity rights for individuals depicted may apply.
Members of the Erick Hawkins Dance Company perform excerpts of “Cantilever” in the Coolidge Auditorium, June 3, 2025. Photo by Shawn Miller/Library of Congress.

Note: Privacy and publicity rights for individuals depicted may apply.
Members of the Erick Hawkins Dance Company perform excerpts of “Cantilever” in the Coolidge Auditorium, June 3, 2025. Photo by Shawn Miller/Library of Congress.

Note: Privacy and publicity rights for individuals depicted may apply.
Members of the Erick Hawkins Dance Company perform excerpts of “Cantilever” in the Coolidge Auditorium, June 3, 2025. Photo by Shawn Miller/Library of Congress.

Note: Privacy and publicity rights for individuals depicted may apply.



voli-usa

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Philadelphia, New York, Houston in May

Getting ready for departure, destination United States!
After two shows in Philadelphia – all pieces for piano and timbre piano by Lucia Dlugoszewski performed in solo and with Hawkins Dance Company (see previous article) – I will be in Brooklyn, NY at Blank Forms, playing music by Scelsi, Cardini, Berio, Higgins and Corner. Then going South to Houston, Texas for an Open Cage show at Memorial Classical Music Series.
Below all the details and some pics taken during the performances:

May 9, Philadelphia, FringeArts: “Pure Lucia”, music by Lucia Dlugoszewski for piano and timbre-piano with the dances by Erick Hawkins performed by Hawkins Company New York info
May 10, Philadelphia, FringeArts: “Pure Lucia”, music by Lucia Dlugoszewski for solo timbre-piano info
May 11, Brooklyn, New York, Blank Forms, music by G. Cardini, G.Scelsi, D.Higgins, P.Corner, L.Berio info
May 14, Houston, Texas, Memorial Classical Music Series, music for piano, string piano and prepared piano by John Cage and Tan Dun info


I’ll be back in US in June, in Washington DC at the Library of Congress:

June 3, Washington DC, Library of Congress, “The effortless now”, music by L.Dlugoszewki for piano and timbre-piano with Erick Hawkins Dance Company and a duo by H.Melzter with violinist Min-Young Kim, Daedalus Quartet. info here

Brooklyn, New York, May 11 at Blank Forms, pics courtesy of Peter Gannushkin:

Houston, TX, May 14, Memorial Classical Music Series:



Bowerbird festival - Philadelphia

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Pure Lucia in Philadelphia (and Lunch with Lucia)

Next month I’ll fly to USA for some performances dedicated to composer Lucia Dlugoszewski.
First stop in Philadelphia at the festival organized by Bowerbird, “Pure Lucia”, a retrospective of the life and work of the composer taking place at FringeArts on May 9th (program) and 10th (program).
Two evenings fully dedicated to Dlugoszewski’s music for ensemble, solo instruments and timbre-piano, including the projection of a film by Marie Menken and the beautiful dances performed by the Hawkins Dance Company, curated by director and choreographer Katherine Duke.
I’m very excited to be part of the project and to perform my newly transcribed version of Here&Now With Watchers. I expect this will be a further opportunity to deepen my knowledge about the composer.
On this respect, Bowerbird will host a series of on-line webinars called “Lunch with Lucia”: I’ll give my contribution on April, 21st, with “Sound Inside: Exploring Dlugoszewski’s Timbre Piano”, but I’m very much looking forward to all the other episodes, starting April 10th!

After Philadelphia, the next stop will be in Washington DC, at the Library of Congress, in June.



Here and Now with Watchers

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Transcribing Here and Now With Watchers by Lucia Dlugoszewski

Again at work on one of Lucia Dlugoszewski’s seminal pieces for timbre-piano, Here and Now with Watchers.
An evening-length piece written for the dance of Erick Hawkins and his new-born dance company, it was the result of a joined creative effort lasting years. The complexity and beauty of the piece, premiered in 1957, also represent many strong aesthetic and philosophical principles that Dlugoszewski and Hawkins developed in the following years, in each own field of art.
Dlugoszewski also took the occasion to formalize some important statements about music and the nature of timbre-piano.
The composition was created in close conjunction with dance, but ready to be standing alone (she performed it as a concert piece with the title “Archaic Timbre Piano Music”).
I concentrated my efforts on three sections of the piece. As usual, there is not a proper score: Dlugoszewski wrote for her own performances, and her notation – when existing – is not at all exhaustive for a performer.
This time I had the help of a precious folder kept at Library of Congress, Washington DC, with many notated pages clearly referable to one of the sections of “Here and Now”, tough in mixed order and probably coming from different times in composition and revision. There are even a handful of pages in nice copy, providing precious notational elements.
Still, this useful but scattered material is not enough. For my transcription I used as a main source one video of the 60ies with Hawkins performing the dance and Dlugoszewski the music, cross-checking sound and movement with the dance score. As I learned in “Cantilever” music, counting is mandatory in case of Dlugoszewski/Hawkins compositions! Constant discussion with Katherine Duke, director of the Hawkins Dance Company, followed the progression of the work.
Comparing these different materials had been very interesting to gather further information on the process of creation and eventually notation of the music; I have the feeling of an improved knowledge of Dlugoszewski’s musical world. I guess, as with the other pieces, that the destiny of this transcription will be to be revised several times, at least one for each future performance.
But for now the next task is to make the music of “Here and Now” alive again, ready in some weeks!
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Working on Here and Now With Watchers by L.Dlugoszewski



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