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Sonatas&Interludes for prepared piano, new release by Neuma Records

It is a great satisfaction to be able to announce this new Spring release (street date: March 17th, 2023), coming out after many years of performances of such a masterpiece as Sonatas and Interludes for prepared piano by John Cage.
This achievement was possible thanks to a great team of professionals: Marco Melchior, always by my side recording, Erdem Helvacioglu, mastering, and Philip Blackburn, director and manager of Neuma Records label. 

To have a physical copy come listen to one of my concerts or buy it on Bandcamp or on Neuma Records website (also digital download).

Happy Spring to you all!

Best Bandcamp Contemporary Classical – March 2023

COMPLETE REVIEWS and RADIO here (last update August 2023):

…a fresh look into the seven decades old music that both her playing and her musicological insights make as fresh as if the work had been composed last year.Rafael de Acha, All about the Arts , February 27th, 2023

The prepared piano was one of the legacies of composer John Cage, and this album with Agnese Toniutti gives a tribute to the iconoclastic sound and attitude. Is the listener prepared for the prepared piano?
George W.Harris, Jazz Weekly, February 27th, 2023

The sound of the work has something special, different from many other editions of this repertoire… we have reason to believe that Cage would have appreciated this magical playful “humus.” Needless to note Toniutti’s executive gracefulness, which blends with that precision of accent inescapable in the most “antipianistic” pianism of the 20th century, devoid of emphasis, restored to a welcoming, almost meditative dimension.
Marco Maria Tosolini, Il Gazzettino, March 8th, 2023

Agnese Toniutti, among the greatest “performers” of contemporary classical music, interprets to perfection this summa of modern culture… And the pianist, in approaching the instrument, opts for the wonder of intonation and the delicacy of timbre.
Guido Michelone, Alias – Il Manifesto, March 18th, 2023

Certainly there’s much to admire in the Italian pianist Agnese Toniutti’s centered rhythm, rich palette of dynamic nuances, and her sensitive textural delineation…Toniutti unquestionably conveys the music’s roots in dance, as well as Cage’s subtle humor. Her intelligent, well-written booklet notes discuss both the music and the process of getting it ready for performance.

Jed Distler, Classics Today.com, April 3rd, 2023

This is a very enjoyable recording whether it is to be a collector’s only recording of this music or one that stands most favorably in comparison to previous recordings. If this is to be your first recording of this work or if you simply want to hear another interpretation, you will not be disappointed. This is a wonderful performance. […] Keep your eyes and ears open for Agnese Toniutti, an advocate for and a master of the avant garde.

Allan J.Cronin, New Music Buff, April 14th, 2023

…That is why this interpretation by Toniutti is sensational. We are listening to a Martian instrument; the technologization of the old piano is extreme and detected. Then there is the anti-solemn attitude of this performer who manages to bring to mind the amiability of Cage in the midst of games (also paradoxically evocative of the Baroque) that seem to take place among laboratory machines and not in front of the most matronly and bourgeois of keyboard instruments.
Mario Gamba, Alias – Il Manifesto, April 22nd, 2023

From the booklet of Sonatas&Interludes, Neuma Records
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Lento trascolorare in Udine – Salotto Musicale Fvg

An event dedicated to Giancarlo Cardini coming soon this Friday, 27th January, organized by Salotto Musicale Fvg in Udine.
Cardini was the dedicatee of 2017/2018 season of Salotto, and visited the association listening to the concert and giving an interesting speech the day before.
Together with the music by Cardini, the Cold Pieces by Erik Satie – Cardini recorded the opera omnia for solo piano by Satie – and the Solo from Passion selon Sade by Sylvano Bussotti, a friend of the composer and companion in many concerts and performances. A special moment, the interwaving of the music with Cardini’s voice, reading his short poems from Bolle di Sapone / Soap bubbles and performing Solfeggio Parlante by Paolo Castaldi from the concert for Demetrio Stratos in Milan.
While preparing for this concert, several memories of Cardini’s collegues and friends were shared with me; a shining legacy silently scattered in the hearts of people who knew him. I am aware of how lucky I am to be able to witness all this.
Journalist Paolo Carradori will be again with me introducing the concert, as for last November performance in Rome.
Below some pics of the event

Photo by Claudia Hajek ⬆️

Photo by Alberto Moretti ⬆️


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Lento trascolorare in Rome

Music is a powerful tool for going beyond the earthly limits of space and time.
This is a thought that comes to my mind as I think with a certain emotion about the upcoming concert, with music by Giancarlo Cardini and Giacinto Scelsi, at Isabella Scelsi Foundation in Rome on November, 22.
Journalist Paolo Carradori will introduce the concert, dedicated to Giancarlo Cardini.
On Monday, 21st November an interview made by composer Stefano Taglietti for his series “Clocks and clouds” at Radio Start will be dedicated to Lento trascolorare and the concert in Rome (here in podcast – Italian).
The day after I’ll spend some time researching at the Archives of Scelsi Foundation, and then I’ll get back on the road to reach Conservatorio “A. Vivaldi” in Alessandria, my new teaching position for this academic year.

Below some pics of the event made by Paolo Carradori, in concert and in rehearsal playing on Giacinto Scelsi’s Bechstein piano, and with Gianni Trovalusci who kindly played the gong in Rituals for the Ryoanji Garden. On the wall, a gong that Scelsi gave to composer Mario Bertoncini, now again in place; in the background some of Bertoncini’s sonic sculptures.

Ludic Inventions 7

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London, music and visuals with Ludic Inventions

Great time in London visiting Brunel University London College of Music and experimenting with sound and visuals.
In 2019 composer Colin Riley dedicated to me a set of miniatures, Ludic Inventions. We recorded them and then ask Lituanian videoartist and composer Kristijonas Dirsė to add a visual layer to the music. Sabina Covarrubias, composer and multimedia artist herself , joined the group from Paris to create an interactive video layer, reacting live to the music.

A joy to meet this great team finally in person and have some fun experimenting, improvising, adding musical layers to the original score.

A work in progress still going on, you can find more info here.

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1962-2022 Fluxus celebration in Genoa

Next week I’ll be part of a huge celebration for Fluxus anniversary in Genoa, “1962-2022 Sixty Years in Flux”, a big exhibition in Villa Croce Contemporary Art Museum, performances, events and music around the city.
On Sept 15th I’ll play an Italian premiere by Mieko Shiomi and other pieces by Philip Corner, La Monte Young, Mieko Shiomi, Giancarlo Cardini, Dick Higgins.

Looking forward!

Genoa, Biblioteca Universitaria, 15th Sept. 2022

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The moon is full, but it is not the moon in Luxembourg

Is it possible to dream together, and, if so, to create something concrete from it?
Happy to say it seems so, and excited to be part of the multimedia installation “The moon is full, but it is not the moon“, taking place in Luxembourg at Rotondes from June, 30th to August, 28th.
The exhibition is in collaboration with artists Gioj De Marco, Karolina Pernar and Andrej Mircev and software engineer Loris D’Acunto and produced by Rotondes. We spent several months in literally dreaming together, writing our dreams and “feeding” with them an Artificial Intelligence. The dreams the AI gave us back in exchange were the basis for our work and for my compositions for the dreaming soundscape of the exhibition.
The entire process of moving from dream experience to language, and from language to real experience has unveiled interesting insights into the nature of all these states of consciousness, and the fluid role of language and sound in the transition from one to the other. Last but not least, it helped to focus on one of the possible roles of so-called-but-not-so-much artificial intelligence in our human lives.
Below some pics and press review; the advertising material quotes some suggestive phrases from the “dreaming” AI.
The video trailer and some notes about the music are at the end of the article.

“But their work goes far beyond the mere physical concretization of the dream. … The impression of a “psycho-oniric” experience is reinforced by the absence of a narrative inscribed in the space and the very compelling music composed by Agnese Toniutti.” Tageblatt 30.6.2022 – Jérôme Quiqueret

“Et dans un paysage sonore, conçu par la pianiste Agnese Toniutti, une tritureuse d’instrument, fan de Cage. Son paysage évoque à la fois un égouttement de stalactites, «un tremblement de Terre sur Mars ou des échos radar de la surface de Titan.» Atmosphère étrange.” En mode rêveur 7.07.2022 – Marie-Anne Lorgé

 

The trailer of “The Moon is full, but it is not the Moon”

The Music

I created four piano pieces, for the most part using extended techniques, synchronized to the huge screen projection at the centre of the hall, which was running and standing still alternatively. Four different “promenades” interconnected the pieces, interweaving field-recordings taken in nature in different seasons of the year to sounds produced with extended techniques on the piano, so to possibly create a strange natural/unnatural sound perception. Some of the sounds of the piano in the promenades served as “themes” developed in each of the piano pieces. Almost-silent moments alternated to music to guide the public towards the “couch video” with dialogue, which was at the very end of the huge gallery. The overall duration of the work is around 45 minutes.
The sound work was conceived to immerse the visitors in the Collective Dreamworld, and also to isolate the space from the outside soundscape (train station, bus station, traffic) and guide the audience through the different visual installations placed in the very big space of Rotondes.

The Moon is full but it is not the Moon

The moon is full, but it is not the moon is a multimedia installation which allows the audience to travel through a surreal landscape composed of sounds, images, sculptural objects, and textual traces.

For six months Gioj De Marco, Loris D’Acunto, Agnese Toniutti, Karolina Pernar and Andrej Mirčev recorded their dreams in collaboration with The Collective Dreamworld Project, an online dream-weaving experiment that uses an AI language prediction model. A sensorial collage emerged, recreated here in a series of atmospheric chambers where sculptural forms, video projections, soundscapes, musical compositions, and staged performances take turns appearing and disappearing. Moving through the space as if in a dream, visitors explore the connections between science, the arts and deep learning.
Production: Rotondes / Photo credits: @ Lynn Theisen

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Spring 2022

Delighted to take up the challenge of ERT/Piccoli Palchi and bring my experience of piano experimentation to the very young. After a workshop in classes with kids from 6 to 11 years old, and one with their teachers, I will play in concert for them. The program will include one of their compositions based on selected extended piano techniques along with pieces by some of the distinguished experimenters of their times: Debussy, Cowell, Bartok, Kurtag, Cage.

From kids to adults, very happy to have accepted a teaching position at Conservatorio “G.Tartini” in Trieste.

Here a new review of Subtle Matters by Paolo Carradori for Le Salon Musical: “I don’t know if courage can represent a useful category that can be spent in music criticism, but one thing is certain, this album is a courageous work. … Subtle Matters not only tells us how the piano not traditionally played, far from the bourgeois living rooms, can still give us surprising sound panoramas but also reminds us how the artist, whoever puts his hands inside the instrument, must necessarily put back into play, courageously re-discuss role and visions.”

Below some pics from the last colourful concert on March 26th at Moroso showroom – which in addition had an excellent acoustics. Music by John Cage, Tan Dun and Philip Corner for prepared piano, string piano and… regular one.


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December 2021 from small to great

A double live Hauskonzert on December 11th with works for piano, prepared piano, voice and keyboard cover (and also many postcards, as you can see) by some exponents of the Fluxus movement: Mieko Shiomi, Philip Corner and La Monte Young. Always an emotion to share music in intimacy at the Salotto Musicale Fvg, but this time more than ever, after so many differently articulated months.
Great change of scenario on the 23rd: performance with Piano Twelve, ensemble made by twelve pianists, at the Teatro Nuovo in Udine. A light program to wish you a (hopefully) light Christmas.
(Below, our first performance back in 2011, in Udine, Loggia del Lionello)

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New book “Looking Within – The Music of John Palmer”

Delighted to be among the contributors of Looking Within – The Music of John Palmer , new publication by Vision Edition. The book is dedicated to the work of composer, pianist, improviser John Palmer, which has inspired several investigations into different aspects of his music. I’ve contributed with an essay and an interview focussing on one of my favorite topics, the mutual influence of composition and improvisation in the creation of a piece of music – and, consequently, how this affects re-creating the piece during performance.
Here are some infos and reviews:

“This fascinating collection of interviews and essays is a testament to the breadth and depth of John Palmer’s creative imagination. However, it is not just a book about a single composer and the dynamic of inheritance and originality that their art evokes, but about music itself. It is about music as an expression of human values which is inseparable from other disciplines such as poetry, philosophy, anthropology, the visual and dramatic arts and other disciplines through which human beings seek to capture the meanings fundamental to their existence. Palmer’s driving motivation is to explore how these meanings can be uncovered by music, bringing music into dialogue with all the other pursuits of human spirit. It is a book for anyone who has felt that music is more than entertainment, and feels the urge to explore and give content to this feeling.”
Dr. Mikolaj Slawkowski-Rode, Philosopher, Blackfriars, University of Oxford, and University of Warsaw.

Writers and interviewers: Paul Alan Barker, Daniel Biro, Eva Böcker, Anna Cepollaro, Patrick Crossland, Késia Decoté, Ricardo Descalzo, Theodor Flindell, Neil Heyde, Egbert Hiller, Jeffrey Holmes, Ikuko Inoguchi, Suzanne Josek, Johannes Klumpp, Anne LeBaron, Charlotte Leport, Carin Levine, Andrew Lewis, Matsuo Masataka, Christina Meissner, Vittorio Parisi, Claudie Reduron, Klaus Schöpp, Aanaya Shanaya, Gavin Stewart, Nick Storring, Sergej Tchirkov, Agnese Toniutti, Dan Weymouth, Peter Wiegold.
Edited by Sunny Knable
384pp, 257x182mm, colour

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“Visionaries” with Frances-Marie Uitti

Very excited for this upcoming concert  – Saturday October 23rd – together with cellist Frances-Marie Uitti in Udine at Salotto Musicale Fvg. “Visionaries”, dedicated to Sylvano Bussotti, is a duo exploration of music by Bussotti, Feldman, Brown, Cage, Stockhausen, together with works by Cardini, Uitti and a brand new work created for us by artist Luciano Martinis.
Looking forward to such a great experience!

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