The Sound of Dome is a quadraphonic composition about the Florence Cathedral (Duomo di Firenze), Italy. In November 2014 I took some field recordings on-site, and on December 11th, with the Sound Engineer Edoardo Fracassi, I recorded the Impulse Response of the cathedral, to utilize the physical model of its reverberation within the composition.

The Sound Of Dome

Every Living Creature Is Due To Arrive Somewhere is a composition built around the themes of Joan Lindsay’s book ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’. The sound material from which the composition originates consists mainly of recordings of melting ice: using hydrophones frozen in ice water, I recorded several melting processes such as pouring hot water, or rubbing it with a plectrum. This deeply unpredictable character of such sonic material is used to capture the essence of nature's uncontrollability, portraying its contrast with the human desire for control.

Every Living Creature Is Due To Arrive Somewhere

Wilder Kabinett is a Music Composition written for “Naturalis Historia“, a 3D Video Mapping Installation by Italian visual artists Apparati Effimeri.

“Naturalis Historia” is a tree projection by Apparati Effimeri, presented at Digital life 2012 (Digital section of Roma, Europa Festival ). The images are projected on real trees. The musical work has been composed together with the images, aiming to investigate the opposition and coexistence between natural and digital world. For the music the author chooses a pretext: a tree abatement. The investigation is about the possible preconditions and consequences of this fall. 

http://www.nicolagiannini.com/portfolio/wilder-kabinett/


Nicola Giannini - Wilder Kabinett

The piece focuses on the micro-sounds created by melting ice. The idea is to amplify  sounds that normally are not audible. It is inspired by macro photography that can provide, for example, the ability to closely observe the veins of a leaf.

Inner Out (Intimacy)

The main idea behind this piece is to represent and tell musically the interactions that take place between people and interactive systems, such as telephone answering machines. 'Voci registrate" is a piece from 2014. The great Tommaso Rosati took care of the Max/Msp programming.

Voci Registrate

The work explores specific aspects of the unconscious that characterize the brief moment when we are about to fall asleep and we are not sure if what we are perceiving is a dream or the reality. Through sound spatialization, a multidimensional unconscious representation was created that evokes the relationship between psyche and body. The fast and involuntary body movements, hypnic jerks, that may occur at that time have been underlined. The work is a collaboration with the artists Elisabetta Porcinai and Alice Nardi, who wrote a poem for it. The text was interpreted by Porcinai and then elaborated by the composer.

The piece obtained the first prize at the Jeux de Temps / Times Play (JTTP) 2019 competition organized by the Canadian Electroacoustic Community, and an Honorable Mention at the XII° Fundación Destellos (Argentina) Electroacoustic Competition 2019. 
This is the Stereo version

Eyes Draw Circles of Light - Stereo

The work explores specific aspects of the unconscious that characterize the brief moment when we are about to fall asleep and we are not sure if what we are perceiving is a dream or the reality. Through sound spatialization, a multidimensional unconscious representation was created that evokes the relationship between psyche and body. The fast and involuntary body movements, hypnic jerks, that may occur at that time have been underlined. The work is a collaboration with the artists Elisabetta Porcinai and Alice Nardi, who wrote a poem for it. The text was interpreted by Porcinai and then elaborated by the composer.

The piece obtained the first prize at the Jeux de Temps / Times Play (JTTP) 2019 competition organized by the Canadian Electroacoustic Community, and an Honorable Mention at the XII° Fundación Destellos (Argentina) Electroacoustic Competition 2019. 
This is the binaural version, to listen with headphones.

Eyes Draw Circles Of Light (Binaural version)

For Hannah is an immersive acousmatic music piece inspired by the royal cobra (Ophiophage Hannah). I wrote this composition because the first time I heard the hiss of this animal I was surprised by the way it sounded like a musical phrase. Forcing this comparison, I asked myself: do cobras play electroacoustic music? I deepened my knowledge of the animal through the studies of herpetologist Bruce A. Young who kindly sent me some of his recordings of the reptile. My intention is to give the public the opportunity to get closer to the world of the king cobra, by allowing them to know about the way this animal perceives the world, its sound production strategies and its behaviours. 

I decided to compose an immersive piece dedicated to this snake also because the sounds that characterize this animal are well adapted to spatialization strategies. The sounds produced by its movements can easily evoke sinuous and enveloping circular trajectories. In addition, their hissing sounds are easy to localize since humans have developed a very good ability to localize sounds that may refer to dangers. 

When king cobras feel threatened, they lift the front part of the body, extend the cervical ribs, take the so-called hooded position and hiss loudly. As they have no vocal cords, the sound they make depends on the passage of air through the trachea. Thanks to Young's studies, I made a physical model of the trachea to record the sound. I used a perforated stainless steel tube, latex, rubber tubes and compressed air. I also used physical model synthesis techniques to create other versions of the hissing sound. I would like to emphasize that although my inspirations come from studies in biology, my work has no scientific intent. I have therefore put these sounds in dialogue with Young's recordings.

Composer Emily Doolittle states that writing music inspired by the animal world is a way to re-establish contact with nature. Composing this piece allowed me to explore visceral aspects of the relationship between humans and nature.

This is the stereo version.

For Hannah (stereo version)

For Hannah is an immersive acousmatic music piece inspired by the royal cobra (Ophiophage Hannah). I wrote this composition because the first time I heard the hiss of this animal I was surprised by the way it sounded like a musical phrase. Forcing this comparison, I asked myself: do cobras play electroacoustic music? I deepened my knowledge of the animal through the studies of herpetologist Bruce A. Young who kindly sent me some of his recordings of the reptile. My intention is to give the public the opportunity to get closer to the world of the king cobra, by allowing them to know about the way this animal perceives the world, its sound production strategies and its behaviours.

I decided to compose an immersive piece dedicated to this snake also because the sounds that characterize this animal are well adapted to spatialization strategies. The sounds produced by its movements can easily evoke sinuous and enveloping circular trajectories. In addition, their hissing sounds are easy to localize since humans have developed a very good ability to localize sounds that may refer to dangers.

When king cobras feel threatened, they lift the front part of the body, extend the cervical ribs, take the so-called hooded position and hiss loudly. As they have no vocal cords, the sound they make depends on the passage of air through the trachea. Thanks to Young's studies, I made a physical model of the trachea to record the sound. I used a perforated stainless steel tube, latex, rubber tubes and compressed air. I also used physical model synthesis techniques to create other versions of the hissing sound. I would like to emphasize that although my inspirations come from studies in biology, my work has no scientific intent. I have therefore put these sounds in dialogue with Young's recordings.

Composer Emily Doolittle states that writing music inspired by the animal world is a way to re-establish contact with nature. Composing this piece allowed me to explore visceral aspects of the relationship between humans and nature.

This is the binaural version, to listen with headphones.

For Hannah - Binaural

Nicola Giannini is a Sound Artist and an Electroacoustic Music Composer based in Montreal, Canada. His practice focuses on immersive music, both acousmatic and performed.

His works have been presented at the Toronto International Electroacoustic Symposium (TIES), San Francisco Tape Festival, Cube Fest, ICMC, New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival (USA), TEDxLondon, Sound-Image Colloquium, Serge Postgraduate Conference (UK), Sound Spaces (Sweden), File Festival (Brazil), Electroacoustic Music International Exhibition (Mexico), Palazzo Strozzi Museum, Audior and Tempo Reale (Italy), among others. In July 2017 he has been a guest composer at the EMS in Stockholm.

His piece “Eyes Draw Circles of Light” obtained the first prize at the Jeux de Temps / Times Play (JTTP) 2019 competition organized by the Canadian Electroacoustic Community, and an Honorable Mention at the XII° Fundación Destellos (Argentina) Electroacoustic Competition 2019. His piece “For Hannah” was chosen as finalist at the International composition competition Città di Udine 2018 and it was performed at the festival “Contemporanea”.

Originally from Italy, Nicola has a master degree in Electroacoustic Composition from the Conservatory of Florence. Nicola is a doctoral student (D.Mus) at the Université de Montréal, under the supervision of Robert Normandeau, and he is presently a research assistant with the Groupe de recherche en immersion spatiale (GRIS). His academic research focuses on immersive music composition, exploring from an artistic perspective the contribution of the spatial auditory perception field to sound spatialization strategies.
Nicola is one of the student coordinators at CIRMMT for the Research Axis on Expanded musical practice.

Nicola Giannini

Popular tracks