VOCI POSSIBILI | Workshop on contemporary vocalism III
2 > 4 December 2022, Villa Strozzi
(registration deadline: Friday, 25 November)
A study and research programme for singers, performers, and composers
curated by NicoNote e Monica Benvenuti
After a two-year break due to the pandemic, a new appointment with VOCI POSSIBILI is here, the study itinerary on contemporary vocalism conceived and curated by NicoNote and Monica Benvenuti in collaboration with Tempo Reale. Aimed towards students from different cultural backgrounds, it intends to investigate contemporary vocalism using a transversal approach. The investigation trajectory of this study itinerary is intended to be inclusive of both academic and empirical training. The training course is divided into seminar workshop appointments: the next one is scheduled for 2/3/4 December 2022.
Every appointment of VOCI POSSIBILI is a moment for in-depth and new, independent study, and attendance of the previous workshops is not necessary. VOCI POSSIBILI is intended as a moment of study and reflection, of investigation, and of in-depth study on contemporary vocalism in an open manner, sensitive to multiple contributions, focused on themes that are identified and suggested each time.
As in a tapestry, each Voice is a thread that tells a story, carries worlds, and evokes others. We shall explore these multiple vocalisms, in the footsteps of those that are known as “extended vocal techniques”
In this third appointment we will once again work on compositions by John Cage, Kurt Weill, Luciano Berio, Sylvano Bussotti, and others that will be indicated in progress. We will study scores and poetic texts that recall many voices, from different worlds and phonetics, and require different vocal approaches and expressive territories. The teachers will work empirically within space, physically passing through fragments of improvisation. From the analysis of the score, the vocalist will first of all intercept their own almost dramaturgical adherence to the score, up to the voices needed for the performance. From here, the performer will reach their intended vocalisation and their choice of the vocal gesture to be expressed. A form of research that underlies the vocal instrument itself.
The appointments will take place at Studio B in Tempo Reale, Via Pisana 77, Florence.
Friday 2 December afternoon: 15 – 19 hrs
Saturday 3 December morning: 10 – 13 hrs afternoon: 14 -18 hrs
Sunday 4 December morning: 10 – 14 hrs
Cost: 140 €
To register, send the appropriately completed registration form by 25 November 2022 to the address: corsi@temporeale.it
There is no selection to access the course, nor are any prerequisites required. However, a short CV is welcome.
Places are limited to a maximum of 20 participants and a minimum number of 7. The workshop does not include the presence of auditors. Registration is considered confirmed only if completed by filling in the application form and paying the advance registration fee. If the minimum number of participants is not reached, the course will not take place and the registration fee will be reimbursed in full.
NicoNote and Monica Benvenuti are two vocalists and colleagues in the field of living performance. Both have been involved in sound and voice research for a number of years, with original and peculiar artistic itineraries. They first met fifteen years ago at Milan’s Teatro dell’Elfo, as guests of the “Cantami, o Diva” festival, an original review of contemporary vocalism.
Monica Benvenuti is a Florentine singer, holding a degree in Humanities; early in her career she was mainly invested in the baroque and classical repertoire, later developing a specific interest for contemporary and 20th Century music, leading her to explore the potential of human voice in relation to different languages, from acting to opera singing, using multiple expressive levels. She has performed in Germany, France, Spain, Belgium, Czech Republic, Hungary, Sweden, Japan (Tokyo, Suntory Hall), Brazil, and the United States, often with music composed specifically for her. In 2004 she was invited by Sylvano Bussotti to be the lead singer in La Passion selon Sade at Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid, conducted by Arturo Tamayo. Other works by Bussotti she has performed are the opera Silvano-Sylvano, at the Accademia di S. Cecilia in 2007, with a role written specifically for her, the world premiere of the music for Rara Film in 2008, and Furioso di Amneris, Ulrica, Eboli, Azucena e delle streghe for voice and orchestra, in the “I Pomeriggi” Orchestra of Milan’s 2013 season, repeated in 2016 in Lugano. She has performed as singer and actress, along with Roberto Herlitzka, in Georg Trakl e la sorella Grete, rivelazione e declino at the Opera of Rome, directed by Beppe Menegatti. In 2007 she had the leading role at the world premiere of Beards, by the Belgian dramatist Stefan Oertli, which was performed, among other places, at the Theatre de la Place of Liège and at the Bozar in the City of Brussels. After many experiences in the world of musical, she had her debut as an actress with Becketts’ monologue “Not I”, directed by Giancarlo Cauteruccio (Italian Critics’ prize 2006). Over the past years she has performed Acustica, Pas de Cinq, and Der Turm zu Babel by Mauricio Kagel, Como una ola de fuerza y luz by Luigi Nono, various editions of Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, a great number of John Cage’s works for voice, and Le Marteau sans maître by Pierre Boulez. She has recorded for Arts, Materiali Sonori, Nuova Era, Sam Classical, ARC Edition, Ema Records, Sheva Collection.(www.monicabenvenuti.com)
NicoNote is an artistic project and an alias created in 1996 by Nicoletta Magalotti, an Italo-Austrian based in Fellini’s Rimini. Singer, composer, performer, active as an interdisciplinary artist, she has developed a unique style in its sound and formats. She is active in multiple areas connected to music, theatre, installations, and clubbing, with artistic productions and curations. From1985 to the present day she has produced a copious discography and performed in music and theatre tours in Italy and all of Europe, as well as Canada, Israel, Argentina, and Brazil. Her training experience has been mentored by masters such as Yoshi Oida, Akademia Ruchu, Roy Hart Theatre, Gabriella Bartolomei. In the mid-80s she was lead singer in the band Violet Eves, one of the main figures of the Italian new wave scene, produced by the independent label IRA Records of Florence along with Litfiba, Diaframma, Moda, and Underground Life. In the 1990s, with DJ David Love Calò, she curated a privee/installation (within the ground-shaking disco Cocoricò), the Morphine, a location for radical musical and performative experiments. Throughout her peculiar interdisciplinary itinerary she has often been directed by artists such as Romeo Castellucci and Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio, Francesco Micheli, Patricia Allio, Maurizio Fiume, Fabrizio Arcuri and many more, and has collaborated with artists from diverse backgrounds such as Patrizio Fariselli from the band Area, Mauro Pagani, from the house producers Mas Collective, Teresa De Sio, Dj Rocca, Piero Pelù, Andrea Chimenti, Ghigo Renzulli, Roberto Bartoli, Stefano Pilia, Mauro Sabbione, Roberto Terzani, Massimo Zamboni, Extraliscio, Enrico Gabrielli, Elisabeth Harnik and many more. She has published and featured in a number of albums from 1985 to now, with various pen names: Violet Eves, Nicoletta Magalotti, AND, Dippy Site and various featured appearances. With the name NicoNote she has published the albums Alphabe Dream (Cinedelic 2013), produced with French composer Mikael Plunian; Emotional Cabaret (Doc Live 2017) produced with Dani Marzi and Alfredo Nuti; Deja V. (Mat Factory 2018) a secret album entirely dedicated to reinterpretations of songs by Violet Eves; Chaos Variation V (Rizosfera RoughTrade 2019) with the producers Obsolete Capitalism Sound System, a project halfway between electronics and philosophy dedicated to Artaud, Bussotti, Deleuze-Guattari, Her latest album is Limbo Session vol.1 (Rizosfera Rough Trade 2021) produced with Wang Inc., between poetry, electronics, radical improvisation. Parallel to this, NicoNote is one of the voices of the Donnacirco project (Tempesta Dischi, 2021); one of her original pieces appears in the transmedia project with double vinyl and graphic novel, Kimera Mendax 2 (New Interplanetary Melodies, Kuro Jam, 2021). She is currently working on REGOLA, a suite in a single movement, and VIII quadri, inspired by Hildegard von Bingen, a rework of a composition of hers for voice and electronics dating back to 2003. Syntonic is her monthly program on Radio Raheem. (https://linktr.ee/NicoNote)
