Program Note
Tuning Limestone (in the term’s double meaning of “tune” and “harmony”) is the result an exploration and mapping of the multiplicity of sound phenotypes that make up the ecosystem of the city of Prato in Tuscany, Italy, documented, processed, and reassembled in a framing process. Just as the marly limestone (dominant in the city’s historic buildings and monumental architecture, and very present in the Calvana mountain range northeast of the city) is crossed by veins and points of different color and density, so Prato offers trace and living memory of multiple historical, social, urbanistic, ethnographic and morphological crossings, indelible imprints and elements of shared heritage with a strong timbral connotation. The sound investigation, carried out by documenting different contexts with special recording techniques, was conducted both in a documentary way and through the solicitation of materials, vibrating bodies, mechanical objects and surfaces to analyze their timbral potential and activate a dialogue with the context. Some of these elements were then chosen for their particular spectral and emblematic conformation to punctuate the structure of the composition, restoring a new soundscape at once identifiable and imaginative.
Commission: Tempo Reale Firenze
About the Composer
Nicola Cappelletti (ITA/FRA) is an electroacoustic sound artist, performer and composer. He focuses his artistic research on the relationship between acoustic sound and electronic processing in various expressive contexts of the contemporary arts, such as dance, visual arts, theater and poetry. He collaborates with numerous artists, performers and musicians in various fields of contemporary music. As a performer his activity ranges from popular music, with forays into rock and club music, to concerts of radical improvisation for prepared instruments, concrete sounds and electronics. As a composer, his work has been presented at ICMC, SMC Conference, NYCEMF, Ars Electronica, Muslab, Atemporanea, Colloqui di Informatica Musicale, Lund Contemporary, Simultan Festival, Mantis Festival, Cantiere internazionale d’Arte of Montepulciano, SICM Colloque International, Festival Nuova Consonanza, Australasian Computer Music Conference, Seoul International Computer Music Festival, Festival Orizzonti, Bologna in Lettere, Encode, Dancity. He is a member of the Opificio Sonoro ensemble directed by Marco Momi and he teaches Electroacoustic Composition at Italian conservatories.