AmotIon: interactive installation with emotion detection and audio feedback. EMAP/EMARE, RIXC.
Excerpt #1 from the improvisation with cellist Nathan Watts (Tempus Konnex) at Werkleitz Festival 2021 (Halle, Germany).

AmotIon - Rosani/Watts improvisation excerpt #1 Werkleitz

Composition for chalumeau by Silvia Rosni
Chalumeau: Shelly Ezra
Seilerbahn (Frankfurt am Main) 17.06.2022

Be[...]en

Frauenstimmen aims to disrupt the segregation between the audience and the performer by revealing aspects of the private life of the performer during the performance. The pianist is encouraged to record memories of women who had a strong impact on his/her life. The timbre of the pre-recorded spoken voice of the pianist is convoluted in the time domain with the recording of Schumann Piano Concerto in A minor. As a result of this process, the performer's voice acquires a sung quality, and is subsequently filtered by the piano sounds live. The live electronics allows to choose the level of disclosure of the textual content and, consequently, the piano sound is enriched by synchronised vocal utterances which can vary from unintelligible noisy elements to fragmented sentences. The composition acquires the quality of a intimate Lied, in which the voice, rather than belonging to a singer, is the one of the pianist.

Frauenstimmen (2018) - Silvia Rosani (Anna D'Errico, Rialto Theatre)

White Mask is a piece for cello and live electronics (ad lib.) which is part of a cycle for cello, live electronics and resonating metal panels (2016-ongoing). The sound of the cello is processed live and projected to three metal panels. The material played by the cellist is a transcription of a fragment from a conversation among women in postcolonial Africa and its formal structure mimics the gradual release of tension that occurs in the conversation by gradually removing a filter on the underlying material, which is repeated within the piece as it is extracted from different enlargements of the original vocal utterances. The electronics convolutes the sound of the cello with that of an mbira, a thumb piano, and aims to reduce the difference between the two instruments. The inclusion of the metallic sounds produced by the panels to the cello sound corresponds to the rattling of the bottle caps, which are traditionally positioned on the thumb piano. The cellist controls the electronics and is free to simply create a shadow to the cello sounds or to generate a more independent voice, that dialogues with the instrument. This approach is inspired by the improvisational frame within which the music for mbira is usually structured.

White Mask - 271218 DME (cello Esther Saladin)

The day I woke, I woke on Churchyard Hill, but I wasn't myself
for voice and live electronics

Performance by Molly Boggess at Grains of Sound festival 2018 (San Francisco Conservatoire, USA). 

Composed for and premiered by Giulia Zaniboni in Darmstadt in 2018. The work represents the deterritorialization which voices go through, when they undergo displacement though Skype, social media or mobile phones. Is it, though, only the voice which is transformed through the spatial transition? By not being in a determined space, but yet projecting one's voice in it, one can shape different selves and discover one's potential as well as have an impact on others which are physically or virtually occupying that space.

The Day I Woke, I woke on Churchyard Hill, but I wasn't myself

Intermezzo 4 is an improvisation created via the use of metal panels and feedback loops. For the performance at Dias de la Musica electroacustica 2018 in Seia (Portugal) Silvia Rosani set up contact microphones on 3 metal panels and connected mini-speakers so cellist Esther Saladin, visual artist Ines Rebelo and herself could each activate the vibration of a panel by approaching it with mini-speakers. According to where the metal panel is approached, the frequency content of the sound generated by the vibration changes, while the distance from the panel affects the dynamics. This piece is part of White Masks, a cycle for cello, live electronics and resonators, and has been designed by Silvia Rosani so non-musicians can take part in performances that involve sound.

Intermezzo 4 - White Masks (DME 271218)

Feedback and motors on metal panels.
Palazzo del Casale (Matera) - In Vitro residenza (LOXOSconcept)
Photo credit Silvia Rosani

Within an anti-capitalist aesthetic approach, this installation is born to resonate with and celebrate the environment surrounding Matera. Visitors can listen to the sound of ancient local seeds, which bounce on a vibrating metal panel. These seeds give birth to plants that grow with little or no water, but are gradually disappearing because of powerful agricultural corporations. Feedback induces vibration on metal panels and the sounds they produce vary from simple sinusoids to harsh and noisy multiphonics. Similarly, the land around Matera is naturally generous, but at risk of desertification. The visitors can sit underneath or near the panels or group of panels and perceive their vibrations by touching their surfaces. The technology used is reduced to the minimum and aims to reveal the inner world of the rough materials used.

All’interno di un approccio estetico anticapitalista, questa installazione è nata per risuonare e celebrare l’ambiente che circonda Matera. I visitatori possono ascoltare il suono di antichi semi locali, che rimbalzano su un pannello metallico vibrante. Questi semi danno vita a piante che crescono con poca o nessuna acqua, ma stanno gradualmente scomparendo a causa delle potenti multinazionali. Il feedback induce vibrazioni sui pannelli di metallo e i suoni che producono variano da semplici sinusoidi a multifocali aspri e rumorosi. Allo stesso modo, la terra intorno a Matera è naturalmente generosa, ma a rischio di desertificazione. I visitatori possono sedersi sotto o vicino ai pannelli e percepire le loro vibrazioni toccando le loro superfici. La tecnologia utilizzata è ridotta al minimo e rivela il mondo interno dei materiali grezzi impiegati.

I Need Little To Survive (extract) Matera 2019

White Mask is a piece for cello and live electronics, which includes the projection of the cello sound into metal panels. The piece is part of White Masks, a cycle for cello, live electronics and resonating metal panels.
Performance at Atelierfrankfurt (July 2019). 
Photo credit: Chris Kister.

White Mask - Rosani (Esther Saladin) Atelierfrankfurt

Frauenstimmen aims to disrupt the segregation between the audience and the performer by revealing aspects of the private life of the performer during the performance. The timbre of the pre-recorded spoken voice of the pianist is convoluted in the time domain with the recording of Schumann Piano Concerto in A minor, thus spectral filtering is applied. As a result of this process, the performer's voice acquires a sung quality, and is subsequently filtered by the piano sounds live. The live electronics allows to choose the level of disclosure of the textual content and, consequently, the piano sound is enriched by synchronised vocal utterances which can vary from unintelligible noisy elements to fragmented sentences.
Premiere April 2018 - Smoke Alley Theatre (Dublin, Ireland)
Festival Music Current 2018
Pianist: Xenia Pestova

Frauenstimmen (Excerpt) - Xenia Pestova (Music Current 2018)

Created for the Sweet Spot Festival 2020 (Salzburg, Austria), this piece uses exclusively sonic material produced during an improvisation Silvia developed with her installation for feedback on metal panels and motors.

Silvia Rosani

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