In
occasione della XIV edizione di Verona Risuona - riconversione sonora di spazi
urbani - festival diffuso dedicato alle contaminazioni tra arte e musica,
organizzato dall'Accademia di Belle Arti, il Conservatorio di Verona e
l’Accademia di Musica e Teatro di Göteborg - giovedì 30 maggio alle ore 21.00
il Giardino Giusti ospita la performance The Act of Touch di Jacopo Mazzonelli
e Tovel (aka Matteo Franceschini - Leone d'argento alla Biennale di Musica di
Venezia 2019). L'iniziativa è proposta da Spazio Cordis per il ciclo Ectopie e
sostenuta da AGIVERONA Associazione Culturale e Lorenzo Lomonaco con la
courtesy di Paolo Maria Deanesi Gallery (Trento), Galleria Giovanni Bonelli
(Milano - Pietrasanta) e Collezione privata Verona.
Le opere di Jacopo Mazzonelli [ABCDEFG, 2015-2016, pianoforti verticali
assemblati, dim. variabili] sono parte di Collezione privata Verona, che le
concede in gentile prestito agli esecutori, e resteranno in esposizione nelle
sale dell’Appartamento 900 del Giardino Giusti dal 02 al 30 giugno 2019 per la
mostra HIDDEN SOUND ROOMS (ingresso soggetto a pagamento di biglietto d’accesso
al Giardino Giusti). Il pianoforte è senza dubbio lo strumento che più rappresenta la fioritura
della cultura musicale occidentale dal tardo Settecento a oggi. In questo
senso, la performance musicale The Act of Touch, costruita sull’opera ABCDEFG
di Jacopo Mazzonelli, permette un cammino a ritroso, una sorta di regresso
all’essenziale, un percorso di “purificazione” creativa votata a catturare l’immagine
più profonda di ciò che si sta scrivendo: la materia, i tasti bianchi, le
sette note, l’alternanza rigo/spazio del pentagramma. The Act of Touch getta lo spettatore all’interno di un paesaggio sonoro
inatteso, dove il suono organizzato si palesa dopo un complesso itinerario di
esplorazione dei materiali. Ordinata su più livelli visivi e concettuali, la
performance si configura come una graduale e consapevole scoperta d‘identità -
un percorso di conoscenza e sviluppo che l’impiego dei sette pianoforti/scultura
modificati permette di compiere. La collaborazione tra Matteo Franceschini e Jacopo Mazzonelli si realizza
attraverso una performance dove la scrittura acustica
si fonde con la
manipolazione elettronica in tempo reale. La nuova fisionomia dei pianoforti e
la trasformazione dei suoi materiali si configura come il punto di partenza per
una riflessione sulla natura stessa del rapporto tra suono e materia. La performance è stata presentata per la prima volta in occasione della
personale di Jacopo Mazzonelli To be played at maximum volume presso il MART /
Galleria Civica di Trento (una mostra a cura di Luigi Fassi e Margherita de
Pilati). La partitura è pubblicata da Casa Ricordi. Dopo ulteriori prestigiose
rappresentazioni, The Act of Touch approda al Giardino Giusti.
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The piano is
without doubt the instrument which best represents the blooming of the Western
musical culture from the late eighteenth century until today.
Considering that,
the musical performance The Act of Touchbuilt upon Jacopo Mazzonelli’s ABCDEFGartwork allows to walk backwards, a sort of regression to the essential, a
process of creative “purification” meant to capture the deepest image of what
one is writing: the matter, the white
keys on the board, the seven notes, the alternation of staff/space on the
pitch. The Act of Touch throws the spectator into an unexpected
soundscape, where the organized sound is revealed after a complex itinerary of
the exploration of materials. Structured on
multiple visual and conceptual levels, the performance becomes a progressive
and conscious discovery of one’s identity – a process of knowledge and
development granted by the altered pianos. The collaboration
between Matteo Franceschini and Jacopo Mazzonelli materializes through a
performance in which the acoustic writing melts with the electronic
manipulation in real time. The pianos’ new physiognomy and the transformation
of its materials becomes the point of departure for a reflection upon the very
nature of the sound–matter relation. In The Act of
Touch, each of the seven devices
is individually amplified and arranged
according to a precise sequence where the central note of the diatonic scale
(FA) assumes a key role in the development of the musical discourse. The pianos
are placed in a specular manner for each of the two performers, while the
sounding board of the note FA - at the centre of the scene - is oriented
directly towards the audience. The performers' hands explore the resonances
through the use of a series of ancient tuning forks tuned by semitones Through
a group of sensors that detects and analyses the vibrations of wooden material
by transforming them into new timbres, the performers activate a virtuosic
technical game. A multi-channel
lighting control system transforms each scene into a visual framework,
gradually focusing attention on precise expressive details. The radical choice
of using only materials, shapes and sounds, deriving from the seven pianos,
amplifies and at the same time closes the circle around a project to which
Franceschini and Mazzonelli have worked over the last three years, from the
choice of materials to the construction of the instruments, through the
archiving and subsequent re-elaboration of each sound encountered during the
transformation process. Wishing to extend
the borders of the sonorous and conceptual
communication, the traditionally
confined composer role combines here with the interpreter’s.
With the pseudonymTOVEL, Matteo Franceschini relaunches
the figure of the author/performer with the aim of experiencing a new sound
"from the inside"; the direct involvement as a performer and the
inevitable work in close contact with the musicians presents itself as a true
creative act.
The point of departure of Jacopo Mazzonelli's
visual creation is musical parallelism, time and its rhythm, the becoming and
the passing, the historicity and the memory. The artist's quest avails itself
of several techniques, of methods borrowed from different languages and
different branches, and of observations which come from unexpected angles that
allow going beyond a front interpretation of the artwork. The "musical
gesture", meant as what underlies the traditional performance, is at the
center of his interest. By working on the
interpretation and visualization of the dimension of sound, the artist
confronts himself with instruments that he destructures, transforms and
recomposes. Mazzonelli and Franceschini have been working
together since 2017, the year of the first performance of ABCDEFG [a Tuned Scuplture] performed at the MART / Civic Gallery of
Trento during the opening
of the monographic exhibition To Be Played at Maximum Volume by
Jacopo Mazzonelli and curated by Luigi Fassi and Margherita de
Pilati. In 2018, the same performance was staged in the
occasion of Artcity Bologna at the International Museum and Library of Music in
Bologna, in conjunction with the personal exhibition Sonografia curated by Chiara Ianeselli. Also in 2018, after an
intense work of research and remodelling of the project, the performance was
expanded assuming the current title The
Act of Touch and was presented for the first time at the GAMO Festival at Le Murate PAC in Florence.In 2019, the Atelier space of the Elfo
Puccini Theater in Milan hosts the bi-
personal
exhibition Parallax, where the Heptagon multi-channel audio
installation [developed from the sound materials used for the performance of The Act of Touch] by Matteo Franceschini
is exhibited alongside the artwork ABCDEFGby Jacopo Mazzonelli.
The musical score
is published by Casa Ricordi. The
performance is a project by TOVEL [Matteo
Franceschini] and Jacopo Mazzonelli, who together with the pianist Eleonora
Wegher are also direct performers. The works of Jacopo Mazzonelli [ABCDEFG, 2015-16, assembled vertical
pianos, dim. variables] are part of a private collection and are kindly granted
to the executors.
