Premiered by Giorgio Casati in Milan (Italy)
February 2022

Edited, restored and mixed by Giuliano Cau

*****

"Du aber bist der Baum" by Gaia Aloisi was written in 2022 and represents a turning point in the composer's artistic journey. The piece pays homage to poet Rainer Maria Rilke's Annunciation, and, in particular, to the idea of roots: just as Rilke investigates the concept of motherhood, the cello explores different sound images across the three sections. In fact, each of them recalls the concept of vocality in different ways: from the glissandi dampened by the metal mute to the "faraway chorus" of natural harmonics, to arrive at the conclusion full of rough and serious sounds, "Du aber bist der Baum" exploits the incredible potential of the cello in an emotional and imaginative journey.

Du aber bist der Baum | for solo cello (2022)

Maayan James, alto saxophone

Premiered in January 2022 at Studio Annette, Tel Aviv (Israel)
Meitar Ensemble - CEME Festival 2022

Live recording and editing by Yoni Gotlibovich

Dual | for solo alto saxophone (2021)

María Díaz Coca, soprano

Premiered in April 2021 at Toni-Areal, Grosser Konzertsaal in Zurich (CH)
Commissioned for the Wettbewerb für zeitgenössische Musik 2021

Studio recording and editing by ClassicaViva - Stefano Ligoratti

Dos monólogos | for solo soprano (2020-21) : I. "Monólogo sobre García Lorca"

Orchestra d'Archi Arrigoni
Pasquale Corrado, conductor

Premiered in November 2022 at Teatro Sociale in San Vito al Tagliamento (IT)
San Vito Musica Contemporanea

Recording and editing by Maurilio Cacciatore

In muti istanti | for two spatialized string trios (2022)

Divertimento Ensemble
Sandro Gorli, conductor

Premiered in September 2021 at Orsolina28 in Moncalvo (IT)
Rondò in Monferrato 2021

Recording and editing by T-Sound

Ringe | for seven instruments (2021)

Biliana Voutchkova, violin

Premiered in October 2022 at ESMUC Barcelona
Mixtur Festival 2023

*****

"[…] an inviolable and almost incomprehensible thing that makes me feel as if time were solid and enclosed, and could be stopped and contemplated…"
Geneva, June 2022

Gaia Aloisi's "Solid, enclosed" focuses on singularity: is it possible to compress time, solidify and crystallize it in order to be able to observe and caress it?

Solid, enclosed | for solo violin (2022)

Sara Mazzarotto, violin
Ludovica Cordova, cello

Premiered in June 2023 at Auditorium Parco della Musica Ennio Morricone, Rome
Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia

*****

"[…] an inviolable and almost incomprehensible thing that makes me feel as if time were solid and enclosed, and could be stopped and contemplated…"
Geneva, June 2022

Gaia Aloisi's "Solid, enclosed" focuses on singularity: is it possible to compress time, solidify and crystallize it in order to be able to observe and caress it?

Solid, enclosed | for violin and cello (2023)

AltreVoci Ensemble
Laura Bersani, flute
Martina Di Falco, bass clarinet
Giorgio Lucchini, cello

Premiered in May 2022 at Museo del Novecento in Milan
Società del Quartetto di Milano
NoMus

*****

Gaia Aloisi's "Au zénith de son rire" is intended as a tribute to Sylvano Bussotti. “Bilangue”: this is the title of Sylvano's very powerful verses, which - with an emotionally powerful and meaningful description - "break" the atmosphere by slipping from one language to another, in a disorder (which is only apparent) of thoughts: the world of emotion and, above all, of sensuality opens up in its purest form.
In the same way - almost like a single body - the three instruments of the ensemble interact with each other and blend their timbres almost in a symbiotic way, with abrupt "color changes" within a discourse made up of ascents and descents, of summits and depressions, of suffused atmospheres and pungent climaxes. An uninterrupted thread that wants to connect deeply with Bussotti's verses: the world of sound meets that of words, recreating in the timbre (and in the transformations of the latter) a universe full of emotional meaning.

Au zénith de son rire | for flute, bass clarinet and cello (2022)

Ensemble Multilatérale
Lise Baudouin, piano
Ángel Faraldo, electronics

June 2023
Barcelona Modern Festival
Sala Aranyó - Phonos Centre, UPF Barcelona

*****

The term xαρμολύπη ("charmolypi") indicates, in Greek, the joy that emerges from sadness and, conversely, the sadness that emerges from joy: a feeling that cannot exist without pain and joy, which live together and give rise to each other other.

Gaia Aloisi's "Charmolypi" takes shape and is articulated through the dialogue between the purity of the piano resonance and the darkness that it contains, and which constitutes its very essence: in a journey made of distances and reconciliations, of delicacy and strength, of stasis and movement, the notes of the piano - in their lively and dramaturgical swarm - discover and explore the shadow of their own light. And precisely the latter, with its growing strength, emerges and ends up prevailing: the confrontation with the darkness and with the hidden and unexplored vibration behind every sound is inevitable.
A comparison which, if embraced, is nothing other than the very essence of human nature.

Charmolypi | for piano and electronics (2023)

Elio Marchesini, percussion instruments
Divertimento Ensemble

May 2022
Sala Donatoni, Milan
Live concert recorded by T-Sound

*****

Synchrony and asynchrony, synchronicity and sound links: this is the reflection from which Gaia Aloisi's "Graduale" was conceived. Can the interpreter - through interaction with a simple surface - symbolically (and gradually) "generate" the sound, almost as if undulating with it without boundaries?

With a completely "physical" and sensorial exploration, the musician becomes the craftsman of a gradual expansion of the acoustic phenomenon, which is discovered, built and enriched in a symbiotic and a-symbiotic process.
In a real meditation based on contact and fusion, body and music become a single substance, in a continuous flow that generates new sound atmospheres and further synchronies.

Graduale | for one percussion player (2022)

Syntax Ensemble
Pasquale Corrado, conductor

Maruta Staravoitava, flute
Marco Ignoti, clarinet
Dario Savron, percussion instruments
Anna D'Errico, piano
Valentina Coladonato, soprano
Francesco D'Orazio, violin
Fernando Caida Greco, cello

October 2023
Auditorium San Fedele, Milan
Live recording and editing by Maurilio Cacciatore

Della pace interrotta | for soprano and ensemble (2023)

Maria Eleonora Caminada, soprano
Riccardo Cavaliere, sax

July 2022
Castello Caetani, Sermoneta (IT)
Festival Pontino di Musica 2022

*****

Gaia Aloisi's "Wallada" is dedicated to the figure of Wallada bint al-Mustakfi: eclectic poet who lived in Arab Cordoba during the 11th century, she dedicated herself to teaching poetry to women of all social classes, leading a life free from the social and religious constraints. Particularly famous is her correspondence with the poet Ibn Zaydun, also a poet, reflecting a controversial and extremely lively relationship. The four short episodes narrate the evolution of their relationship in an explicitly dramaturgical way: through the interaction between vocal theatricality and instrument, the power of the text finds its full expression.

I. Prólogo (0:00)
Yo ¡por Dios! merezco la grandeza
y sigo orgullosa mi camino.
Doy gustosa mi mejilla a mi enamorado
y doy mis besos a quien los quiera.

(I, for God's sake, deserve greatness
and proudly follow my path.
I gladly give my cheek to my lover
and I give my kisses to whoever wants them.)

II. "Cuando caiga la tarde..." (2:30)
Cuando caiga la tarde, espera mi visita,
pues veo que la noche es quien mejor encubre los secretos;
siento tal amor por ti que si los astros lo sintiesen
no brillaría el sol, ni la luna saldría,
ni las estrellas emprenderían su nocturno viaje.

(When evening falls, wait for my visit,
because I see that the night is the one that hides the secrets best;
I feel such love for you that if the stars felt it
the sun would not shine, nor would the moon rise,
not even the stars would undertake their nocturnal journey.)

III. El hexágono (6:05)
Tu apodo es el hexágono, un epíteto que no se apartará de ti
ni siquiera después de que te deje la vida:
depravado, puto, adúltero, cabrón, cornudo y ladrón.

(Your nickname is the hexagon, an epithet that won't stray from you
not even after life leaves you:
depraved, damned, adulterous, bastard, cuck and thief.)

IV. "De Júpiter estás enamorado" (7:45)
Si fueras justo con el amor que existe entre nosotros,
no habrías escogido ni amarías a mi esclava;
has dejado una rama donde florece la hermosura
y te has vuelto a la rama sin frutos.
Sabes que soy la luna llena,
pero, por lo desdicha, de Júpiter estás enamorado.

(If you were right with the love that exists between us,
you would not have chosen or loved my slave;
you left a branch where beauty blossoms
and you returned to the fruitless branch.
You know I'm the full moon,
but unfortunately you are in love with Jupiter.)

Wallada | four narrative episodes for soprano and sax (2022)

Gaia Aloisi - Three clocks (2023) for large ensemble

Ensemble Novecento
Pasquale Corrado, conductor

Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia
Sala Sinopoli, Auditorium Parco della Musica Ennio Morricone, Rome
October 2023

*****

Three clocks, which by definition mark time, crystallize as equally well-defined images: three brief representations of time but also of interior space, in a linearity that transforms into an instant, giving the listener the possibility of stopping and observing what world can be contained in a single moment.
The piece is thus divided into three movements, understood as subdivisions of the same musical and temporal discourse: the alternation between the glacial stasis and the explosions of sound of the first clock is followed by the melos of the second, which explicitly recalls vocal sounds in an atmosphere tonally nuanced, almost like a distant lament; the frenzy of the third, on the contrary, photographs and expands the obsessive excitement of a repetitive cycle of chaotic thoughts.
These are therefore three dilated snapshots, three moments that become narration. Each of them is framed and explored through its infinite ramifications, in an attempt to investigate the essential and fundamental dimension of our existence: time.

Three clocks | for large ensemble (2023)

Gaia Aloisi is a composer from Cagliari, Sardinia (IT). After undertaking her first musical studies in her home town, she devoted herself both to voice and composition obtaining a Bachelor of Arts at the Haute École de Musique in Geneva (HEM) and a Master of Advanced Studies in Contemporary Music Performance and Interpretation at the Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana. She then obtained her Master’s Degree in Composition at the Conservatorio “G. Verdi” in Milan with Alessandro Solbiati and a High Specialisation Diploma at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome with Ivan Fedele. She is currently completing a Postgraduate Course with Clara Iannotta at the MDW – University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna.

As well as having been awarded in several international composition competitions, her original works have been commissioned and performed on the occasion of festivals and events and all around the world, including the Wettbewerb für zeitgenössische Musik in Zurich, LuganoMusica 2023 in Lugano, CEME 2022 by Meitar Ensemble in Tel Aviv, Festival Pontino di Musica in Sermoneta (IT), Mixtur Festival 2022 and Barcelona Modern Festival 2023 in Barcelona, Rondò Festival by Divertimento Ensemble in Milan, Festival SpazioMusica in Cagliari (IT), Migros Kulturprozent Music Competition (2020) in Zurich, Società del Quartetto di Milano, Festival 5 Giornate in Milan, Musikiin Aika in Viitasaari (FI), Festival Expresiones Contemporáneas in Morelia (MEX), Milano Piano City, Institut für zeitgenössische Musik (IzM) in Frankfurt, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, Syntax Ensemble’s concert season in Milan and many others.

She has collaborated with various artists and ensembles of different nationalities, including Riot Ensemble, Mdi Ensemble, Ensemble Dal Niente, Divertimento Ensemble, Syntax Ensemble, AltreVoci Ensemble, Aulos Flute Ensemble, Spheres Ensemble, Ensemble Novecento of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Eccetera Saxophone Quartet, Amat Saxophone Quartet, Orchestra d’Archi Arrigoni, Marina Boselli, Lise Baudouin, Maria Grazia Bellocchio, Elio Marchesini, Nicolò Cafaro, Maria Eleonora Caminada, Marco Ignoti, Elisa Prosperi and many others. Her music has been lead by several conductors, and she has a solid collaboration with Pasquale Corrado. 

She has also received commissions from various institutions: in the 2023, her work “En corps, matière” for flute orchestra was commissioned by the Musik-Akademie in Basel and premiered in the prestigious Kulturkirche Paulus. In 2020, her work “Dialogues” for viola and cello was commissioned and premiered on the occasion of the École d'hiver internationale en médiation de la musique in Paris, in the concert hall of the Orchestre National d'Île-de-France. She has also collaborated with the Haute École de Musique in Geneva; since she is active in the research field, she was a research assistant at the latter institution in 2021.

She is currently working on an opera which will be premiered in 2024 at the Tete à Tete Opera Festival in London.

Her artistic creation ranges from the musical-theatrical field to pure sound creation, as well as the analysis of historical compositional techniques and musical means of the oral tradition.

Gaia Aloisi

Popular tracks