The Institute of Theatre and Opera hosts two meetings in the cycle Stories of Creative Women in the Twentieth Century from Russia to Europe organised by Ca’ Foscari University in collaboration with the LEI (Leadership, Energy, Entrepreneurship) project. The initiative, divided into nine thematic encounters, is dedicated to an in-depth biographical and artistic investigation of emblematic female characters from the twentieth century. Retracing their narratives will allow us to reflect on the overcoming of both identitary and national boundaries.
Categoria Evento: Conferences and Seminars
Germano Celant: Venice
The conference, organised at the Giorgio Cini Foundation in collaboration with the Studio Celant as part of the thematic Study Days: Germano Celant. Chronology of a Militant Critic, aims to provide an initial survey of what Germano Celant did in Venice, focusing on and emphasising those initiatives which, once put into perspective, turned out to constitute founding moments in his career.
The history of Celant’s activity in the city of Venice begins in the mid-1960s, when still in his twenties. Thanks to the relationship of esteem and trust with Umbro Apollonio, he wrote for the magazine La Biennale di Venezia. Rassegna delle arti contemporanee. From the Biennale, he later received assignments that were fundamental for his emergence, curating the exhibition Ambiente/Arte: dal Futurismo alla Body Art (1976), crucial for the achievement of his critical maturity, and later Futuro Presente Passato at the XLVII International Art Exhibition. Venice Biennale (1997). Of the 1980s and 1990s, mention should be made of his decisive contribution to the realisation of Il Corso del Coltello: a performative work resulting from the collaboration between Claes Oldenburg, Coosje van Bruggen and Frank O. Gehry, staged in 1985; his collaboration with Pontus Hultén on the occasion of the exhibition Futurismo & Futurismi (1986), with whom he later curated Arte Italiana. Presenze 1900–1945 (1989), both held at Palazzo Grassi; with Michael Govan the exhibition Mondrian e De Stijl. L’ideale moderno (1990) at the Giorgio Cini Foundation and with Giandomenico Romanelli Anselm Kiefer. Himmel-Herde (1997) at the Museo Correr. In the 1980s, his relationship with Emilio Vedova intensified, leading him to the role of curator of the Fondazione Emilio e Annabianca Vedova: a place where he also held major exhibitions. For Fondazione Prada, he curated exhibitions in the spaces of the Fondazione Giorgio Cini such as the Thomas Demand solo show (2007) and the John Wesley retrospective (2009), up until the renovation and opening of Ca’ Corner della Regina, where he curated the exhibition When Attitudes Become Form. Bern 1969/Venice 2013 (2013), which was to make its mark on the international scene by virtue of the fervent debate it provoked. In 2019, the same spaces would host the exhibition that Celant dedicated to the career of Jannis Kounellis. He was to return to the Cini Foundation in 2013 with the Marc Quinn exhibition – featuring a selection of over fifty works including sculptures, paintings, drawings and other art objects by one of the best-known exponents of the Young British Artists generation – and in 2019 with Emilio Isgrò, a key anthological exhibition exploring his career from his early erasures in 1964 to the historical volumes of the Enciclopedia Treccani (1970) and the ethnic volumes of the Ottoman codices (2010).
Performing Vivaldi on the basis of his manuscripts. Seminar with Federico Maria Sardelli
The Italian Antonio Vivaldi Institute proposes a series of seminars aimed at instrumentalists, singers, conductors and musicologists who wish to study the performance practices of Vivaldi’s music in depth. The encounters focus on the study of his original manuscripts and the many performance indications contained therein.
On Tuesday 14 February at the Fondazione Ugo e Olga Levi, Federico Maria Sardelli’s book Il volto di Vivaldi will be presented.
Egida Sartori and Laura Alvini Early Music Seminars Viola bastarda and the Art of Italian-Style Diminution (1580-1630)
Viola bastarda and the Art of Italian-Style Diminution (1580-1630)
Director: Pedro Memelsdorff
Seminar
2-6 November 2022, Fondazione Giorgio Cini
To participate as auditors, please contact the secretariat at: musica.antica@cini.it
Concluding Concert
Saturday 5 November, 5.30 p.m., “Lo Squero” Auditorium
Admission free subject to availability
In Italian treatises or music collections of the late 16th and early 17th century, the term alla bastarda generally refers to a particular technique of ornamenting (or diminishing) vocal compositions with rapid virtuosic passages over a large range, performed on instruments such as the organ, harp, lute or viola. Viola bastarda, on the other hand, denoted – or appears to have denoted – a type of viola da gamba particularly well-suited, by tuning or constitution, to the performance of these diminutions. Considering the importance attached to this technique by numerous historic composers – such as Girolamo Dalla Casa, Giovanni Bassano, Riccardo and Francesco Rognoni, Orazio and Francesco Maria Bassani and Vincenzo Bonizzi –both the relative scarcity of surviving compositions and the rarity of modern historiographic writings on the subject are surprising.
This particular edition of the Egida Sartori and Laura Alvini Early Music Seminars sees M. Paolo Pandolfo, a well-known specialist and teacher at the Schola Cantorum in Basel, conducting a group of five violists accompanied by harpsichord, and selected through an international call for scholarships, in the exploration of this repertoire.
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There will also be a public concert (free admission but booking required) at the Squero Auditorium on Saturday, 5 November, at 5.30 p.m
The seminar participants conducted by Paolo Pandolfo perform at the final concert.
Musicians:
Rosamund Ender, viola da gamba
Thomas Fields, viola da gamba
Stephen Moran, viola da gamba
Vanessa Hunt Russell, viola da gamba
Gaetano Simone, viola da gamba
Nicola Lamon, harpsichord
Conference Venini: Light 1921-1985
The Venini: Light 1921-1985 exhibition is the result of a long-term research programme promoted by Le Stanze del Vetro project, which since 2012 has offered opportunities to study the history of the renowned Venini glassworks, always accompanied by a conference organised by the Glass Study Centre.
This year the conference focuses on the theme of lighting at the Murano company. Since the first post-war period the glassworks made a key contribution to the growth and development of this specific sector, both nationally and internationally, definitively freeing lighting technology from its original, merely decorative conception. The technical refinements and innovations pioneered by the Venini are both small and large scale and cover a very broad typological spectrum: from the creation of various types of pendant luminaires and wall lamps to ceiling lighting installations for cruise ships, hotels and railway stations. The numerous projects for public and private commissions also enabled artists of the calibre of Vittorio Zecchin, Napoleone Martinuzzi, Tomaso Buzzi and Carlo Scarpa to express their creativity in various stimulating areas.
The list of designers and architects was further enhanced over time with other renowned figures, such as Gio Ponti, Franco Albini, Massimo Vignelli, Alessandro Mendini and Ettore Sottsass, to name but a few of the those who contributed to the creation of some of the most innovative, prized objects and models, made thanks to the technical experiments that have always been a hallmark of the Venetian company.
With the contribution of glass specialists and art historians, the conference will explore some of the stages and moments that determined Venini’s success in this specific segment of production, from the 1920s to the present day. This will also involve analysing some particularly striking installations and projects, such as the famous “velario” glass roof of the Palazzo Grassi inner courtyard in Venice and the polyhedron installation designed by architect Carlo Scarpa for the Italia 61 exhibition in Turin.
Seminar The History of Venetian Civilisation. Italy and the Mediterranean
The history of Venice spans more than a millennium and encapsulates the features of various histories, such as Byzantine history, the history of Italy, and the history of the Mediterranean and of Europe. In this way Venice undoubtedly expressed its own civilisation. Vittore Branca was a firm believer in the notion of the “civilisation of Venice”, often the subject of study and reflection in the early decades of the Fondazione Giorgio Cini. Indeed, many specific books and an initial major synthesis were devoted to the civilisation of Venice. How important is the subject today? Should the study of Venetian civilisation be relaunched?
This seminar brings together leading experts to reflect on the issue by assessing the state of the art of Venice historiography and charting the distinctive features of a state and a unique political, ideological, economic and cultural system in the Mediterranean and Europe.The seminar provides the opportunity to commemorate Gaetano Cozzi, long-serving director of the Institute for the History of the Venetian State and Society, this year being the centenary of his birth.
Conference The Eranos Experience: Spirituality and the Arts in a Comparative Perspective
This conference has been organised by the Centre for Comparative Studies of Civilisations and Spiritualities, the Institute of Music, and the Intercultural Institute of Comparative Music Studies (all Fondazione Giorgio Cini) and the Center for the History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents (HHP) at the University of Amsterdam. Inspired by Rudolf Otto and Carl Gustav Jung, the Eranos Colloquia were organised in Ascona by the Dutch activist, painter and researcher Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn from 1933 onwards.
The meetings brought together some of the most stimulating minds of the day to discuss topics such as spirituality, mysticism, myth and symbolism, with the aim of opposing what was perceived as an inexorable secularisation. The focus of the conference will be on the legacy of Eranos in the social sciences, humanities and the performing and figurative arts (music, dance, theatre and painting). The event will be enriched by a concert of the mdi ensemble that will play music by Renato de Grandis, Ernesto Rubin de Cervin and Giacinto Scelsi at the Auditorium “Lo Squero”.
Download the programme of the conference The Eranos Experience
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Seminar Computer-Assisted Composition: Perspectives on Human-Machine Interaction
Dedicated to the memory of Gottfried Michael Koenig, this seminar has been organised by Giacomo Albert and Laura Zattra, coordinators of the RISME digital research group of the Italian Society of Musicology. The term “computer-assisted composition” took hold in the 1980s to designate a set of experiences whose roots went back a further three decades to the dawn of digital applications in music. Originally related to algorithmic composition and computational modelling of musical structures, this approach has continued to develop and now indicates a wide and varied set of digital tools applied at different stages in the compositional process.
Although there are many technically-oriented publications on computer-assisted music, musicological essays have so far been limited to specific studies without offering a comprehensive view. The Venice seminar is intended as a first step to fill this gap. Computer-assisted composition will be studied from the perspective of human-computer interaction: the research group will explore the ways in which composers use digital instruments and formulate hypotheses on the repercussions of digital architecture for writing music and its structures.
The seminar consists of three sessions: in the first, three musicologists will discuss the technology-writing relationship in specific case studies; in the second, the focus will be on the overall human-machine interaction and the philosophical roots of “assisted composition”; and lastly, in the third session, three composers and music assistants will reflect on their experience in the light of the previous discussions.
Participants: Joshua Banks Mailman, Marc Battier, Agostino Di Scipio, Carl Faia, Jonathan Impett, Sanne Krogh Groth, Marco Stroppa, Martin Supper and Elena Ungeheuer.
International Conference Architecture and Stage Design for Minor Theatres, 1750-1850
The Institute of Theatre and Opera, in collaboration with the University of Applied Sciences in Bern and Lausanne, is holding an international conference on the themes of architecture and stage space and design for minor theatres in Italy and Europe between 1750 and 1850. The event is part of Raphael Bortolotti’s PhD project: “Italian Stage Design in the 19th Century” and is the second conference, following one held in October 2021 in Feltre, entitled “Practices of Provincial Theatres in the Risorgimento: Management, Stage, Music, Audience and Repertoire”.
During the transdisciplinary conference, scholars from various fields will explore not only theatrical space and stage design in minor and provincial theatres but also treatises in this architectural field, which at the time was so important that it generated a conspicuous production of essays, scholarly treatises and theoretical projects, as well as numerous competitions related to the theme and the built results.
In addition, again in an interdisciplinary approach, the history of individual theatres will be analysed through in-depth studies and their socio-historical role in the 18th and 19th centuries reassessed. The advisory committee is composed of Maria Ida Biggi (Fondazione Giorgio Cini Institute of Theatre and Opera; Ca’ Foscari University, Venice), Raphael Bortolotti and Annette Kappeler (University of Applied Sciences, Bern).
Presentation The Conati Archive: Safeguarding and Using Marcello Conati’s Recordings Held by the Fondazione Giorgio Cini
The archive to be created in this Intercultural Institute of Comparative Music Studies project consists of an important collection of mainly previously unreleased tape recordings of traditional popular songs from the provinces of Verona, Parma and Reggio Emilia, recorded in the field in the early 1970s by the musician and musicologist Marcello Conati. The Veneto recordings in the collection amount to 35 tapes, mostly made in the areas of Fumane, Zevio, Ferrara di Monte Baldo, Lazise, Sant’Anna d’Alfaedo, San Bonifacio, Negrar and Marano di Valpolicella. The musical content of the collection is of great importance because it provides invaluable examples of oral-tradition music and popular culture in the Veneto, including some songs or music which have now died out.
Thanks to the renewed contribution of the Veneto Region and its collaboration with the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, begun in 2021, the Intercultural Institute of Comparative Music Studies has now been able to launch the project to safeguard, enhance and promote knowledge of this music collection through its digitisation, archiving and publication in a digital catalogue, edited by Costantino Vecchi.
The public presentation will be an opportunity to illustrate the results of the project and discuss the potential for further study and possible restoration and development projects to be agreed upon with the researchers.
Presentation will start at h. 4 pm
Program:
Renata Codello
Segretario Generale, Fondazione Giorgio Cini
Arianna Bernardi
Direttore, U.O. Attività Culturali e Spettacolo, Regione del Veneto
Francesca Scatto
Consigliere Regionale, Presidente della Sesta commissione consiliare permanente
Teresa Camellini
Istituto Memoria & Durata
Giovanni Giuriati
Direttore IISMC, Fondazione Giorgio Cini
Costantino Vecchi
Archivio IISMC, Fondazione Giorgio Cini
