Main Compositions
ODE TO ERIC DOLPHY for solo bass clarinet
Ode To Eric Dolphy was written for and dedicated to the great bass clarinet player Harry Sparnaay, who first performed it in Rome, during the Festival of “Nuova Consonanza”, on November 18 2006.
The composition is a homage to Dolphy and to his musical world.
References to Dolphy’s own compositions are hidden in the score, along with some typical musical gestures that Dolphy used during his collaborations.
The piece has been conceived as a monologue, a series of musical thoughts, so it should be performed in a “speech-like” way. The last 40-60 seconds of the composition must be improvised, and the player is completely free to communicate something to or about Dolphy, or to show what kind of link he/she feels he/she has with him.
BABAU for alto flute and bass clarinet
Babau” is an Italian word for “bogey-man”, and if you consider the situation in Italy in 2008, it’s not hard to figure it out who I’m talking about. This composition is part of a concept album I’m going to record sometime in the future called “Monsters”. Anyway, this composition is intended as a little game of joy and playfulness in these troubled times. The piece is dedicated to Carla Rees And Sarah Watts; I hope Carla and Sarah enjoyed themselves playing Babau, like I did writing it.
EXPERIMENT 52 for alto flute duo
In 2009, I wrote a piece for unaccompanied piccolo, commissioned by the Italian flutist and piccoloist Fabio A. Colajanni. This piece is called “Experiment 51”, and to me it’s been a sort of “mother composition”, that gave birth to two more pieces, “Experiment 52”, for two alto flutes and “Experiment 53”, for piccolo and alto flute. These two derivative pieces share the same material with the generative piece, reassembled with various techniques. For that reason, “Experiment 52” and “Experiment 53” are a sort of two different Frankenstein’s monsters, and in fact the two pieces are part of the concept album “Monsters”.
Published by Tetractys Publishing: http://www.tetractys.co.uk
EXPERIMENT 53 for piccolo and alto flute
Answering to a call for scores from Carla Rees and Matjaz Debeljak, I wrote this little piece for a Piccolo Festival in Jezersko, Slovenia. This is a derivative piece from a “mother composition” for unaccompanied piccolo, called “Experiment 51”, with which it shares the same material, reassembled with various combinatory techniques. I went to the première with my wife and my little child by car, crossing the Italian border from Trieste. The whole experience was beautiful, and the première was amazing.
Published by Tetractys Publishing: http://www.tetractys.co.uk
SAME OLD MONSTERS for quarter-tone bass flute and electronics
I’m going to record a concept album called “Monsters”, someday. “Same Old Monsters” will be the main composition, along with “Bardhezi”, for unaccompanied voice, with which it forms a diptych. The title suggests that the characteristics of human violence, oppression and malice are the same over the centuries. The idea of the piece is an activity that requires attention, delicacy and commitment (the bass flute part, with its rhythmic intricacies, quarter tones and multiphonics), opposed to the obtuse brutality of the Same Old Monsters. Our antihero tries to resist and to fight back, but at the end gives up, and his voice becomes nothing but an inarticulate babble. The final version of the score was done with technical supervision by Carla Rees.
Published by Tetractys Publishing: http://www.tetractys.co.uk
REIFICATION Acousmatic
The World, Today.
Fetishism of commodities, and therefore commodification of relationships, leads up to Reification of Mankind.
Individuals are reduced to things among things, they melt away through the rules of Market, and therefore they feel alienated from their real nature.
What is the real danger? It’s being subdued by Reification, considering logical and natural what is not.
This composition is a dreamlike (or nightmare-like) meditation about all this, to be played loud in a dark place.
QUIX for piccolo and violin
Quix is a word derived from “quixotic”, adjective created after Cervantes’s “Don Quixote”, meaning something that is foolishly impractical, not realistic, but here it’s not intended as a negative concept, since I firmly believe in the thought-provoking value of Utopia as a way of thinking that could drive us to get amazing results
HOTEL ODESSA for flute, clarinet, violin and cello
“Hotel Odessa is situated on the National road Librazhd-Pogradec, in a very strategic place 20km from Pogradec and 15km from Ohrid near Albanian-Macedonian border. This hotel is built exactly where historic and famous "Via Egnatia" percolates. It is new and offers everything a guest might need.” (found on the web).
But, in spite of appearance, this is not a piece of program music and it has no precise reference to the musical tradition of the place...
BARDHEZI for solo voice
“Bardhezi” (an Albanian word meaning “Black and white”) is about the astonishment we experience when we are facing an act of primitive and absolute violence accomplished by those who seem incapable of so much wickedness. The whiteness of the snow may contain the black of evil, the fall of man remains etched in the snow like an indelible stain.
The text refers to the ambiguous nature of the snow; it’s white, freezes nature and protects, changes, makes the journey difficult and unstable.
This composition, the text of which consists of a poem of the Albanian poetess Suela Gusha, is dedicated to the singer Akiko Kozato, who premiered the piece in Osaka, Japan, in November 2011.
"Bardhezi" consists of four sections (A, B, C, D). The first three should be performed at least once and can be repeated in any order for an indefinite number of times, at the performer’s discretion. The fourth section (D) must be performed last, as a final of the whole performance.
QUIXOTIC for solo piccolo
“Quixotic is a piece for solo piccolo. Usually when we play contemporary classical music we all know that we'll play something new and interesting. Also Quixotic is not exception, or maybe better, it's exception in a very good way.
For piccolist Quixotic is a challenge. The piece starts in a very peaceful mood, where piccolist can show the beauty of tone in low register, and continues with very quick parts, which are technically very difficult, especially because of big jumps. Piece also includes a part of contemporary elements such as tuned breath, key click, slap tongue and for me the most interesting - ring click, because the performer must wear a ring and do some clicks with it.
As I said, for piccolist it's a great work because of all different styles and components which are included into piece. Also for listener it can be very interesting, maybe a little bit unusual, but what's unusual is good - you don't know what to expect”. (Andreja Marčun, piccolist, first performer of the piece)
PAREIDOLIA Acousmatic
Pareidolia is “the tendency to interpret a vague stimulus as something known to the observer, such as interpreting marks on Mars as canals, seeing shapes in clouds, or hearing hidden messages in music”. The piece is 4 min 33 sec long, like the famous piece by John Cage, and is intended to be played with no audience in a room near the place where Cage’s 4’33” is being performed, so that the sound of this piece could merge with the “impure” silence of Cage’s piece…