Clara La Licata, alto
Danilo Pastore, countertenor
Michele Gianquinto, bass
Divertimento Ensemble
Sandro Gorli, conductor

Rondò 2024
Fabbrica del Vapore, Sala Donatoni, Milano (ITA)

24th April 2024
Live recording

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Ghost poetry

 Anyone who knows the Baths of Caracalla is certainly aware of the disturbance they cause, even on a sunny day, multiplied a hundredfold in the Roman night. Ancient walls, gigantic, deserted ruins that bear witness to a golden age devoured by time. Pasolini portrays this place in several poems, a place abandoned after the Second World War, the scene of love markets, very different from the site found today by tourists curious about archaeology. The outcast humanity of the Italian capital roamed around those meadows in the darkness. Outcast but not guilty of any crime, simply made marginal by the power dynamics that tend to exclude from sight, from decorum, those who fall into poverty. A very current topic ever.

 Trionfo della notte is a staging of that phantasmagoria. Instruments and voices bring a waste soundscape to the surface. Words dissolved from meaning echo like ghosts of language. Music evokes the background hidden in the word, it directly articulates the sound image without pronouncing it, as in a ritual, first nature and then the human, which makes its appearance with disjointed words, as if spoken confusedly by that crowd of anonymous passers-by.

Trionfo della notte (2024)

Ensemble Novecento
Pasquale Corrado, conductor

Note contemporanee
Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia
Auditorium Parco della Musica Ennio Morricone, Sala Petrassi, Roma (ITA)

6th June 2024
Live recording

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Portrait of a world on fire

[...] the Fire will come and take over all things [...]
Heraclitus, p. 8

 That the contemporary world travels on a clinamen is an awareness that we have had for a long time. That this climate is incandescent, bringing about change, is a further awareness that we must ignore. Paul B. Preciado reminds us that the world is on fire and with it the coordinates that Humanity has tried to make stable in its History. Space is on fire, both due to anthropization that cements it or wildly deforests it and due to the inexorable consequences of ongoing climate change. It is also on fire due to the exceptional event that was Covid, which eliminated our relationship with the world, accentuating the isolation in our daily living world, which is not always peaceful. Time is on fire, it is dissolved, it is out of control (The time is out of joint from W. Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act I, Scene V) and has been so ontologically for a century, that is, since Einstein explained to us its total physical relativity.

 Going on fire is not a nihilistic act, but it is changing. In the act of changing, two things are interesting: the process that attacks the ancient matter and the hypotheses of transformation.

 Dysphoria Mundi is the staging of a resistance on the part of the ancient to survive the inevitable mutation that generates the new. How can sound make the changeable? One might respond that it already does so in itself. Spectral analysis has taught us that no sound object is stable and static, but that they live a life of their own, energy that mixes the harmonic and inharmonic components of the spectrum, creating autonomous perspectives. A note is never just a black or white dot written on a line or in a space, but it is a spectromorphology. This internal mobile nature of sound has already given significant results in recent decades.

 Dysphoria Mundi does not question the origin of chaos but starts ex abrupto from the magmatic process of change, lingering on the hypotheses of arrival: a new minimal cosmos, a tamed complexity, the prevalence of the formless, etc...

Dysphoria Mundi (2024)

APOLLO ENSEMBLE OF BOSTON
Elias Miller, conductor
Live concert recording January 11, 2025 - Cambridge, MA, USA
1-3. Dvorak Cello Concerto (Leland Ko, cellist)
4-7. Robert Schumann Symphony No. 4

Schumann Symphony 4 Movt 3 (Apollo-Elias Miller)

Schumann Symphony 4 Movt 2 (Apollo-Elias Miller)

Schumann Symphony 4 Movt 1 (Apollo-Elias Miller)

Dvorak Cello Concerto Movt 3 (Leland Ko, Apollo-Elias Miller)

Dvorak Cello Concerto Movt 2 (Leland Ko, Apollo-Elias Miller)

Dvorak Cello Concerto Movt 1 (Leland Ko, Apollo-Elias Miller)

maybe we are both wrong

Whispers of the Unr-membered, is a piece for bass clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and live electronics. This piece delves into the realm of cherished distant memories, those fragments of our past that we hold dear and wish to preserve untainted. However, it confronts the poignant reality that with the passage of time, these recollections gradually wane, leaving behind but faint echoes of their original selves. The endeavor to recapture these fading memories invariably alters their clarity, giving rise to obscured facets and even fabricated recollections.

Whispers of the Unr-membered

Michael Tabak studied for ten years at the Juilliard School of Music Preparatory Division, where he was rated "Exceptional" by the woodwind faculty jury and was principal flute and soloist with the orchestra.  He was principal flute with the National High School Symphony Orchestra at Interlochen, Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra, Lynbrook Philharmonic, Philharmonic Symphony of Westchester, Fine Arts Symphony, Boston Chamber Symphony and, most recently, Apollo Ensemble of Boston (https://apolloensembleofboston.com/).  His extensive chamber music experience includes being a founding member of the Weston Wind Quintet (https://wwqboston.org/), the Atrium Winds, and the Aujourd'hui Ensemble.

SoJo Gonzalez is a multifaceted artist, celebrated as a film score composer, actress, and musician with an extensive background in ballet. Her scores have been featured in films premiering at the Austin Film Festival, earning her widespread recognition. In February 2024, she received the prestigious Zev Award as one half of the duo band Lila and Sofia and was also honored at the Austin Music Award Ceremony.

Beyond film, SoJo produces music for other artists, composes for dance, and performs with her duo band. She also explores dem/house music, showcasing her versatility. Drawing from her ballet experience, she brings a keen sense of movement and artistry to her work, making her a dynamic force in the world of art and music

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