VILLA LONTANA

The concert Digit-Azioni per Sylvano Bussotti was performed at Villa Lontana on Wednesday 15 June 2022 to celebrate Maestro Sylvano Bussotti, composer and performer, painter, writer, set designer, director, costume designer and actor. Bussotti was one of the most original Italian composers of the second half of the 20th century, experimenting with varied and diverse forms of expression.

Paolo Ravaglia on clarinet, Jacopo Antonicelli on saxophone and Manuel Zurria on flutes performed three solo pieces that are the result of instrumental research conducted by Sylvano Bussotti in the 1980s: Rondò di Scena for 4-flute virtuoso, Brutto, ignudo for contrabass clarinet and electronics, Ballerina Gialla e Pettirosso (1986-89) taken from the collection Voliera for saxophone and a version of SOLO (1966), excerpted from La Passion Selon Sade, reimagined for the 3 instruments with the addition of environmental recordings and electronics.

Sylvano Bussotti was a pioneer in instrumental research and in the extension of musical performance into the theatrical and visual sphere. The 1960s had created a very evident push in this direction with the contribution of other composers (Mauricio Kagel, John Cage and Gyorgy Ligeti), but no one had ever gone further than Bussotti, translating his restlessness with particular graphicisms that equivocally render the need to 'look beyond' the score and to find new procedures and solutions.

VILLA LONTANA RECORDS · Digit-Azioni per Sylvano Bussotti

Installation view of Sylvano Bussotti's room, Courtesy Giuseppe Garrera, IMAGES FOR SOUNDS, Villa Lontana, 23 February – 30 April 2022

Paolo Ravaglia on clarinet, Jacopo Antonicelli on saxophone and Manuel Zurria on flutes performed three solo pieces that are the result of instrumental research conducted by Sylvano Bussotti in the 1980s: Rondò di Scena for 4-flute virtuoso, Brutto, ignudo for contrabass clarinet and electronics, Ballerina Gialla e Pettirosso (1986-89) taken from the collection Voliera for saxophone and a version of SOLO (1966), excerpted from La Passion Selon Sade, reimagined for the 3 instruments with the addition of environmental recordings and electronics.

Sylvano Bussotti was a pioneer in instrumental research and in the extension of musical performance into the theatrical and visual sphere. The 1960s had created a very evident push in this direction with the contribution of other composers (Mauricio Kagel, John Cage and Gyorgy Ligeti), but no one had ever gone further than Bussotti, translating his restlessness with particular graphicisms that equivocally render the need to 'look beyond' the score and to find new procedures and solutions.

VILLA LONTANA RECORDS · Digit-Azioni per Sylvano Bussotti

Installation view of Sylvano Bussotti's room, Courtesy Giuseppe Garrera, IMAGES FOR SOUNDS, Villa Lontana, 23 February – 30 April 2022