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Siena, October 13, 2020 – The Chigiana International Festival & Summer Academy will be present on October 14th, 2020 at the Impuls Festival for New Music in Halle, Germany as a member of the Festival Alliance for Contemporary Music in Europe (F.A.C.E.). The Artistic Director of the Accademia, Nicola Sani, will present together with Manuel Zurria – flautist and protagonist of the “The Bad Boys” – the new “concept project” produced by the Accademia Chigiana, that features works by contemporary composers to include Michael Beil, Stefan Prins, Kevin Volans, and Mario Pagliarani.
Maestro Sani was interviewed for the Contemporary Beyond Borders bulletin about the contribution of the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in furthering the development of new sonic languages of our times:
Nicola Sani (CHIGIANA FESTIVAL, IT)
How does Europe sound?
Europe sounds like an extraordinary community of many different musical cultures.
How do we find the way to New Music?
Our relation to contemporary music is very natural. It is embedded within the history of the Chigiana Academy, which was founded in 1932 and has always been “contemporary”.
How would you describe your festival in three words?
Young, creative, and pluralistic.
“The Bad Boys” are also on the program of this year’s Micat in Vertice concert season (on 5 March 2021) The members of the ensemble are: Manuel Zurria, flute; Stephane Ginsburgh, piano; and Thomas Cancellieri, sound and video.
THE BAD BOYS is an inter-media project that stems out of a paradox: to gather in a collective, composers and artists in constant search for their own artistic expression. But art has often drawn its creative power from paradox, provocation, discontinuity, and the pleasurable game of the politically incorrect. The composers collective THE BAD BOYS , of which a short fragment will be presented as a preview at the IMPULS Festival, emerges from these contrasts. Michael Beil and Stefan Prins make visible and audible the disturbing separation between living and virtual reality in times of standstill and restriction. With the Walking Songs, Kevin Volans brings his unique indigenous timbre into the overall structure: a sound carpet made of sand, dust and African markets. Mario Pagliarani deconstructs the popular Italian pop song “Azzurro” as a synchronized intervention to take to the extreme the absurd game of destroyed perception. The Bad Boys is an unusual tour-de-force of current New Music in a wild interplay of deconstruction and dissolution.
“We are proud – says Nicola Sani – to participate to the IMPULS Festival with the project “The Bad Boys”, a new creation that develops a plurality of languages and enhances our rapport with new multimedia technologies without losing track of ground gained thus far, from the twentieth-century avant-gardes to some important episodes of musical antagonism later in that century. The new network F.A.C.E. is the optimal context to present projects of this nature, born with a vocation for trans-nationalism and multi-code. I am confident that this new international cooperation, undertaken by the European centres of creative excellence, will be a reference point for Europe when it defines new strategies of musical production and fruition after the pandemic. The partners are dedicated to creating synergies between many arts, cultures and musical forms in their national contexts, sharing resources, ideas, and new potential. This seems to be the best response to the divisiveness that disrupts today social and political fabric.”
About F.A.C.E.
The newly established network Festival Alliance of Contemporary Music in Europe (F.A.C.E.) is an important signal in times of “distancing”, both for people and Nationa. It represents the first artistic and solidarity-based collaboration among contemporary music festivals in which the exchanges and sharing of productions are real, audible and visible.
A specialist conference with participants from the festival network is the highlight of this special meeting of festivals. The exchange of artistic ideas that look at Europe as a joint cultural project culminates in a final European Lounge in which statements on Europe, the systemic relevance of art and culture, and visions for the future will be collected and artistically processed. The music thrives out of closeness and interaction. In times of increased distancing, cohesion and solidarity among the European festival landscape are more important than ever.
The next meeting of the F.A.C.E is planned for Siena in Summer 2021 as part of the Chigiana International Festival & Summer Academy 2021.
Link to the event: http://www.impulsfestival.de/2020/concert/enter-the-void/
