text -sound compositions

A Collection of Smiles

A WDR Studio Akustische Kunst production 2011.

Kenta Nagai - acoustic guitar, oud.
Johnny Chang - violin
Chris Heenan - contrabass clarinet
Alessandro Bosetti - piano, electric piano, celesta.

Several people, which may remain anonymous, some already acquainted to each other, some not, are left alone in a room in front of microphones. They are not told what to talk about, they have an hour of time. Voices are recorded separately so that they could thereafter be cut, spliced, repeated, reorganized in different and ever changing constellations.
Spoken phrases are transcribed into pitches and melodic profiles and arranged and re-composed for a small chamber ensemble with guitar, oud, contrabass-clarinet, violin, piano and celesta.
Words and phrases turn themselves into melodic progressions. Infinite recombinations are possible. Counterpoint is the perspective and the motor.
In "A Collection of Smiles" it has been my intention to observe, capture and portrait the acoustic manifestation of language as something that happens in between. Between multiple people, multiple voices, multiple mouths. Play : A Collection of Smiles teaser

The Conversation ( Berlin Live Version)

Alessandro Bosetti - voice and electronics.
Johnny Chang - violin
Chris Heenan - contrabass clarinet

The Conversation is both a deconstruction of the composition "Life Expectations" and a preparatory study for "A Collection of Smiles" exploring the musical possibilities of an exploded conversation with oneself and the meandering and potentially dangerous effects of thinking out loud in front of an audience. The piece is based on a conversation between two anonymous speakers that has been transcribed for instruments and broke down into modules that can be played, reassembled and improvised upon. The instrumentalists reacts to the - each time different - recombinations of utterances and spoken modules played by Bosetti while he struggles to find his way out form a very dark standing comedy exercise.Play excerpt

gloriously repeating
The newest of a wide family of speech loop pieces in Bosetti's repertoire. Closely related to the work performed with the ensemble Trophies in recent EU and USA concerts.
I like to think of this piece as a musical composition, a song, a literary essay, a poem or an unreligious mantra. It lies in between genres without embracing any of them. It came form an urgency to say and sing something that felt quite emotional for me. Since I could neither sing nor say it, it came out as an uncanny mixture of the two. I based it on a sinuous and recurring text and melody that explores the implications of repeating while making repetition its main ingredient. Repetition is the matter of our lives, of failure and birth, of dreams and pulsation.

636
Trying to count as long a spossible in french while a text - sound score tries in every way to disturb and interrupt. A sound meditation on "number blindness". Live performance from the studios of RTBF in Bruxelles for Art's birthday 2010. Play excerpt.

children's america.

Produced by WDR's Studio Akustische Kunst 2009

Imagine an America ruled by children. They staff the post offices, run the schools, oversee the military, and decide on the form of government.
What does the country look like under the reign of kids? And, more importantly, what does it sound like? Composer Alessandro Bosetti, aided by a gaggle of young collaborators, decided to find out.

arcoparlante
"Good evening, we are playing Stille Post (Telephone) ..." this was the opening line used by a Deutschlandradio speaker on long and middle wave frequencies the night of march 21st.
On that night Alessandro Bosetti and the Klangkunst group of the station set in place a radio-art version of the popular game creating a gigantic sound poetry generator on the frequencies (and internet streaming ) of the radio station.
During the event partly incomprehensible radio messages has been transmitted and transcribed several times until they transformed into abstract, musical, mysterious and sometimes surprisingly funny materials. This process happened with the active participation of listeners all over the world. Arcoparlante, is a "speaking ark". An electromagnetic feast of misunderstandings on a large scale for a sound artist always concerned with language oddities, mis-communication and translations used as creative tools. Play : excerpt 1. excerpt 2

campanas.
An exploration of the acoustic and resonant spaces of the island of Gomera in the Canary arcipelago, six year after the composition of The Whistling Republic, based on the original whistled language El Silbo.
I decided to bring raw sounds from that piece and to position them again inside the landscape. For a several days I walked all over the island looking for acoustically interesting spots and re-playing many sounds from my previous work that I re-recorded in this new acoustic setting.
We need to put something inside and acoustic space to perceive it.
If we are transported in a pitch black space it would be enough to clap our hands to get a rough idea of the size, shape, materials of construction of the room we are or if we are in an open air location.
By the making of "Campanas" I was aware of those possibilities while experiencing the somehow exhilarating moment of re-staging the life of a preexisted, then transformed and re-imagined sound into it's original environment. Play : excerpt 1. excerpt 2

image from Erin Wonack's cover art.

zwölfzungen*
I like to listen to languages I don't understand.
I like the moment when the understanding of words stops and every language starts to "make noise".
All languages have a special sound, some more than others developed particular acoustic characteristics for the delight of a musician's hears.
For "Zwölfzungen" I recollected recordings of eleven languages I'm not, or partially, able to speak and understand. Eleven languages I met in the past years, whose sound I specially liked. Moreover I invented a twelvth one, developed and learned during the past year and featured as a last installment of the series.
I made a piece of music with each of them, escaping from the meaning of words and concentrating on his specific sound, letting my ears concentrate and developing all sound details I'll be captured by.
*"Zwölfzungen", in italian "Dodicilingue" could be translated as twelve languages as well as twelve tongues. >>>> listen to some installments here

Gesualdo Translations (The Chicago Version) 2009

Gesualdo Translations/The Chicago Version: Alessandro Bosetti in collaboration with students from the Sound Department at the School of the Art Institute:

Bosetti and his collaborators recorded people throughout Chicago singing along to renaissance madrigals by the Neapolitan composer Gesualdo da Venosa. The resulting recordings has been transformed into a polyphonic electro-acoustic performance that superimposes languages and histories.

Gesualdo Translations
after the madrigals of Carlo Gesualdo Principe di Venosa

Audrey Chen - Mezzo-Soprano.
Simon Zalevski - Harpsichord
Andrew Arceci - Viola da gamba, Violone.
Alessandro Bosetti - Piano, Harmonium, Regal organ, Guitars, Oud, Banjo, Field recordings.

Listen>>>Excerpt#1 Excerpt#2 Excerpt#3 Excerpt#4

The musical translations presented here originate from the fifth and sixth books of madrigals published by Carlo Gesualdo Principe di Venosa in 1611. They have been sung by people I met in Napoli where Gesualdo used to live and compose. Meetings happened by chance in streets, cafes, parties, markets and churches in July 2007. Each of those persons was previously unaware of those madrigals. They sung along single voices from the original polyphonies I presented to them through a pair of headphones. I then reconstructed the polyphonies with what was given to me. The original cromaticisms in the music widened and frequency proportions bended. Every one of the many off pitch notes mattered. Each omission, each confused muttering was part of this gift. The whole arrangement process that followed has been meditation and practice on the "screziatura" as well as on the erratic nature of musical pitch under the influence of stars, places and human encounters. ...continue reading.

The feelings of Objects

Listen and more...

What do objects feel ? What happens when we say : "I'm emotionally attached to this object" ? Could be that the object itself may be emotionally attached to us ? What if it's the object itself feeling something ? Do objects remember ? Why some objects generate a "mood" ? When is it that the post organic starts having sex appeal ? Can objects really take care of us ?
Some objects are silent, others not, they carry emotions. I look around and some objects are special to me. Often for reasons i don't know. The stumme diener is unforgettable. Why so ? That old tractor so charming. What makes it that way ? The vaacum machine in the physiscs laboratory at the university inspires me to spend a night in the same room and the desire of falling asleep right there. Why ? What does my saxophone thinks of me ?
I wish i knew....

african feedback
For African Feedback I travelled in Western Africa with a CD player and a selection of experimental, electro-acoustic and improvised music.This "portable memory" represented my background as a musician or, in other words, my personal "cosmogony". My favorite records.I did propose a listening of those sounds to people completely unaware of them and I did ask for a description. I did never explain what they were listening to.They listened the music through headphones and I recorded in the meanwhile the description or imitation they produced in real time.The presence of the headphones permitted not to have traces of the original musics in the new recordings but just the "feedback" received from the listener. Once back in Europe I used exclusively this recorded material in constructing a text sound composition. The dynamics of misunderstandings, of interest or indifference in front of my propositions in sound constituted the focal point of my curiosity and reflection. Recordings took place in November 2004 in Dogon and Mossi villages between Mali and Burkina Faso.
il fiore della bocca
Asking myself why contemporary music, radio art and sound poetry always choose to deconstruct language while using it in a sonorous context I decided to cooperate with persons who are going along the opposite path, having to reconstruct the broken language they are born with.
The piece is based on recordings of of voices of handicapped persons, ( afasics, spastics, larynxless ) and on the development of musical aspects of their speech.
I played to them recordings of contemporary, improvised electro acoustic music and sound poetry where the human voice has been "deconstructed" and asked them what they where listening to. I asked to describe and comment it. All answers has been recorded and constitue the basic sound material upon which the piece is constructed. All sounds to be heard in the piece (apart from one) come from that recordings. >>>>>> listen#1 listen#2

il fiore della bocca
i've been asking myself why contemporary music, radio art and sound poetry always choose to deconstruct language while using it in a sonorous context. Looking for that answer I decided to cooperate with persons who are going along the opposite path. People having to reconstruct the broken language they are born with.
The piece is based on recordings of of voices of handicapped persons, ( afasics, spastics, larynxless ) and on the development of musical aspects of their speech.
I played to them recordings of contemporary, improvised electro acoustic music and sound poetry where the human voice has been "deconstructed" and asked them what they where listening to. I asked to describe and comment it. All answers has been recorded and constitue the basic sound material upon which the piece is constructed. All sounds to be heard in the piece (apart from one) come from that recordings >>>>> >listen#1listen#2

the mouth
I composed a "headphones score" for four players (cello, bass clarinets, tuba) and a vocalist exclusively made of sounds from voices of handicapped persons. During the piece they have to imitate the sounds they hear, as precisely as they can. They are like dolmetchers. During the piece some elements of the "headphones score" are revealed through the electroacoustic part of the composition although many other remain hidden. The piece was carried out together with the Kammerensemble Neue Musik in Berlin.
more about >>>>> video

the whistling republic
On La Gomera, an island of the Canary archipelago, a whistled language is still used among inhabitants and helps them to communicate over distances of five or more kilometres. During a stay on the island I did write many short texts based on real experience as well as fictionary scenes I imagined. I let translate them into Spanish and gave them to whistle to some pupils of the school of San Sebastian. They have to whistle to other pupils over a distance of a couple of kilometres where I positioned myself with a microphone. I recorded the whistle coming from afar and the attempts of understanding that were reported to me. Starting from those recordings I created this text-sound composition.

die schnellsten woerter
During a research on improvised poetry in Toscana and Sardinia I prompted some of those improvisers to create poems on given topics as internet, radio and digital medias and recorded them. Starting form those recordings I created this text-sound composition developing music aspects of their speech.

pinocchio
Travelling up and down Italy, my country, I recollected many recordings of people telling the story of Pinocchio. Everybody thinks he knows the story. But infact everybody tells a different one. Also, I always asked it out of the blue so that anybody could prepare himself or read the book again. On this spoken word audio documents ( and with other sounds and intruments) I created this text sound composition.
The piece has many hidden an secret aspects I will not talk about, dealing with real persons I knew who became of wood and died right after. It's mostly a piece about that.

everyday objects
A sound meditation on the feelings of objects. It's inspired by thought and reflections in Mario Perniola's book "The sex appeal of the inorganinc". Words are taken from recorded inteviews with Chiyoko Szlavnics, Thomas Ankesmit and Derek Shirley. During the interviews I always started with the same question : Do objects have feelings ?
This project has been awarded with the Horspiel scholarship of La Muse en circuit in Paris and eventually carried out in the same studio.