More info? http://a-touch-of-music.blogspot.be/2013/12/virtual-choir-auto-harmonize-your-voice.html

Lamentatio

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Il habite partout [2014, excerpt]

"Disiecta Membra" (2014)
for six voices

Live Recording 
February 5th 2015 
Festival ECLAT Theaterhaus Stuttgart
Neue Vocalsolisten

Disiecta Membra, latin for “scattered fragments” is an expression used to refer to surviving fragments of ancient poetry, manuscripts and other literary or cultural objects, but can also literally means "scattered limbs" or "scattered members". 
The membra this piece is dealing with are the different cuts of Grunnius Cocotta, the imaginary pig whose last wills are summoned in the Testamentum Porcelli, a parodic middle-age text. The short excerpt of this text that I decided to use is an inventory of twelve body parts that the pig, right before being slaughtered, bequeaths to twelve categories of will beneficiaries.

Et de meis visceribus dabo donabo sutoribus saetas, 
rixoribus capitinas, 
surdis auriculas, 
causidicis et verbosis linguam, 
bubulariis intestina, 
isiciariis femora, 
mulieribus lumbulos, 
pueris vesicam, 
puellis caudam, 
cinaedis musculos, 
cursoribus et venatoribus talos, 
latronibus ungulas

[And from my body I shall give and contribute to the cobblers my bristles, to quarrelers my head-parts, to the deaf my ears, to lawyers and the wordy my tongue, to sausage-makers my intestines, to makers of meat products my thighs, to women my little loins, to boys my bladder, to girls my tail, to poofters my muscles, to runners and hunters my ankles, to brigands my hooves]
	
One can easily draw a comparison between this parodic list and the amass of dismembered bodies of saints that (still) populate catholic churches all around Europe. 
Mikhail Bakhtin in his “Rabelais and his time” elaborated the concept of grotesque body and wrote extensively about these holy remains: 

"At the time of Rabelais ridicule relics were quite common, especially, of course, in the Protestant satire […]
Dismembered body of the saint in medieval literature has repeatedly given rise to grotesque images, and transfers. In one of the best medieval parody travesties - in "Treatise Garcia" (1099), the hero, a wealthy Simonist archbishop of Toledo, brings to Rome as a gift the miraculous relics of holy martyrs Rufus and Albina […] "… from the kidneys Albina, from the innards Rufina, from the stomach, from the back, from the backside, from the edges of chest from the legs, the hands, from the neck. What else? - From all the members of both bodies of the martyrs. " We see that already in the XI century relics gave rise to a purely grotesque anatomy of the dismembered body"

While the catalog of pig cuts of the Testamentum has a direct influence on the form of the piece - which is indeed a catalog of short pieces, each related to a different body part -, this reference to relics is suggested by the use of several musical quotations issued from Membra Jesu Nostri, the famous set of seven cantatas by Dietrich Buxtehude, which is also a catalog of limbs: feet, knees, hands, side, breast, heart, and head. Curiously enough, what is considered to be the first Lutheran oratorio has the form of a massive immaterial reliquary for a body that left no material remains. 

The contrast between this longing for the absent flesh and the carnavalesque exuberance of the Testamentum was the basic source of inspiration for the composition of Disiecta Membra. 


Mauro Lanza - "Disiecta Membra" (2014)

Non si era mai vista tanta neve [excerpt]

Esboço #2, a commission from the Young Musicians Prize/Antena 2 for its 30th anniversary.
Interpretation: Orquestra Jovens Músicos
Conductor: Cesário Costa
(Permission from Young Musicians Prize/Antena 2)

Esboço#2 Excerpts

Sunday Evening Feedback

“When I look through the density of the water, at the paving in the depths of a swimming pool, I do not see it in spite of the water and its reflections. On the contrary, I see it through the reflections, because of them. If these deformities, these stripes of the sun were not there; if I were glancing at the paving’s geometry without the interference of this flesh, then I would stop regarding it the way it really is; there, where it really is: beyond every identical space.” — Maurice Merleau-Ponty, L’œil et l’esprit (Eye and Mind), 1964.
The sonic world of Underwater Theories combines electronic sounds created by software synthesizers, with acoustic instruments, such as human voice and doublebass treated by the software Max/MSP. Although my original intention was to explore and emphasize the “rivalry” between electronic and acoustic, or “concrete,” sounds, surprisingly, these two sonic worlds were blended together in a concordant way, creating sonic environments where no confrontations between artificial and natural exist.
Underwater Theories was realized in 2002 at the composer’s studio in London (England, UK) and premiered on October 20, 2004 during the 11th International Acousmatic Festival L’Espace du son (Brussels, Belgium). Underwater Theories was a finalist at the 3rd Biennal Acousmatic Composition Competition Métamorphoses (Brussels, Belgium, 2004). It has been recorded on the compact disc Epoque de l'Eau and Métamorphoses 2004.
(From electrocd.com)

Epoque de l'eau

Theories Underwater

"In this piece, I aimed to create a continuous stream of different thoughts and emotions. It is not only that the consecutive sections significantly differ from each other, but also a number of contrasting layers are often superimposed, i.e. presented simultaneously. The music is dynamic with often and abrupt changes and goes to unexpected directions. The piece is inspired by the fictions of the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. In this piece, I aimed to create a continuous stream of different thoughts and emotions. It is not only that the consecutive sections significantly differ from each other, but also a number of contrasting layers are often superimposed, i.e. presented simultaneously. The music is dynamic with often and abrupt changes and goes to unexpected directions. The piece is inspired by the fictions of the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges."

Adjacent rooms, for Borges
performed by Ensemble Reconsil Vienna

Antanina Kalechyts, conductor

Eric Lamb, flute
Helene Kenyeri, oboe/English horn
Mirjam Ilsebill Schiestl, clarinet
Kaori Nishii, piano
Bojidara Kouzmanova–Vladar, violin
Daniel Moser, viola
Maria Frodl, violoncello

Live recording on 10.10.2018 at Reaktor, Vienna
Special thanks to Mehmet Ali Uzunselvi for the mastering of the recording

Adjacent rooms, for Borges (2018) | Kalechyts & Ensemble Reconsil

NYE improv

"To Be Sold To Be Let" for Voices

The overwhelming majority of  Laboratorie New Music composers' works thus far reproduced inscribe themselves in a syntactic stucturElist perspective created expressly for our ambitions.  Indeed the creative effort in our works is principally brought to bear on the formal aspects of composition: sonic, consonantal, vocalic, rhythmic, graphic, prosodic and numerical constraints, structures and programs.

"To Be Sold To Be Let" for Voices

Luca Danieli was born in 1988 in Arzignano (VI), Italy, and studied Sound Engineering & New Technologies with Nicola Bernardini, Alvise Vidolin and Massimo Marchi at the Conservatory “C. Pollini” of Padova. He studied Music Theory and Contemporary Art History with Stefano Lanza and Alessandra Possamai and has studied Instrumental and Electronic Music Composition, VideoArt and Human-Computer Interfaces with Iannis Zannos, Theodore Lotis, Marianne Strapatsakis and Andreas Mniestris and Dimitra Trypani at the Ionian University (Greece). Also, he studied Mathematics at the University of Padova, with Martino Bardi. 

NYE improv

LucaDanieli

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