He was an actor for theatre and films, he attended the school of Giorgio Strehler at Piccolo Theatre in Milan. As an art director he realized many plays in Venice for the University; for the Regione Veneto he directed the school called ‘il mestiere dell’attore’. He worked with Luca Ronconi, Biennale ’80, and was the curator together with Scaparro of the town hall Theatre in the 90s. Particularly attracted by the works of Antonin Artaud he realized an exhibition at Palazzo Fortuny, (1997). For La Biennale of Venice he directed many plays and worked together with Carolyn Carlson: From the interior, Parabola, Light bringers, and Il Vuoto dell’acqua – music by Luigi Nono.

Making a work of art is not a narcissistic act, nor pure self-therapy, that tells of one’s own private story even though such works always speak from the very inside. The civilization of the work tells about feelings in contrast to the personal and collective mythologies of self-reference and egotism post-modern rituals. The post-modern nostalgia concerns only unreal places and emptied images. My own attention is to real places of identification that are those of civilization: the choral action of the crowd that is the warm-heartedness of a civilization. My works meet the world with steps at once light and heavy. They embody the rhythm of a “primitive” civilization whereby the works of art appear as necessary and invisible “natural events”, and yet with so strong a presence as to show the way. The form is not an addition of visual facts, but a place where senses rest, a departing point towards the world. The adventure of forms is the adventure of this journey from being torn to becoming whole. And a quiet sort of tearing this is that already knows its reconciliation and so waits overcoming its tragedy. The viewer is taken along this journey unable to feel fully involved, no matter how much he tries.

He is not able to close the circle opened by the work who alone can close it. Here you have the solitary adventure of the work of art, a solitude that feeds on distance. The “conquest” is a conclusion that sounds final. I do not believe in art annihilation, yet it is from this ground of defeat that art is howling with pain. I’m terrified that artists become simple spectators, just astonished open-mouthed onlookers being the end point of a chain of observers called the media, philosophy, politics, science, and so on. But the artist does not observe: he is blind, he judges without looking. I am not against what is found as a gift, but against that way of finding that forces one to resignation, that condition from which you cannot expect the making of any work of art. I am not interested in the comparison between works of art and everyday objects. I prefer to conceive the image as parallel to reality, something feeding on it without getting subject to its rules and taking it daily without getting addicted to it. Possibly they could establish an uninterrupted dialogue, where in turns one takes over.

At any rate I don’t think it right to keep holding a belief, be it either of pop or pro-Third World inspiration, in some magic power of objects, as if they were fetishes. For me a work of art should not be affected by either of these influences that weigh it down in its search for a way. I admire that art that is able to mould forms and materials into a new image, even if to do so it uses and manipulates the existing objects. There is something that draws me towards a purely idealistic dimension and simultaneously to the condition of a skilled performer, highly expert of handicraft techniques. Within this duality, I really wouldn’t know where to stand. Anyhow I feel rather inclined towards the highly sophisticated matter. The work of art thus becomes a compound, a contamination and, being within a dialogue, never a pure product. The work of art is the result of a daily dynamic. We live constantly waiting for an intuition and sometimes it happens. This is the creative gesture, the founding act of the work of art. I don’t like to think about the work of art as a reiterated vocabulary exercise, I regard it more as a unique moment both of arrival and departure. I’m not interested in de-materialization. Indeed, often the matter of my works stands out.

Of course the work’s final result does not aim at its elevation. In actual fact, on the one hand matter is “put on stage” while on the other it vanishes. In this way de-materialization is a transition rather than a starting point. The forms I normally work on are not derived from figures, but I like to relate them with something human, as for example the body and the point of view of the spectator. I try to evoke a human presence (much as invisible), both through materials’ traces and through experiences. My work is a dialogue between things that have borders and things that don’t. I think light and colour are constantly expanding factors and the form is something superimposed, that defines the borders. Painting, for instance, is a very topical issue. The relation between projected colour and solid colour is considered an attempt to set borders to something otherwise bound to expand over its surroundings. All my work is a struggle between these energies. The work of art cannot be considered a container of ideas, but an ideological fact: it approaches directly the question of power, of it’s authority within reality and its ability to be perpetuated.

© 2005 Alfredo Pirri

Born in Zambia, educated Zimbabwe and University of Cape Town in South Africa. Lives and works in London. Came to Europe in the early ’80′s, started out as an assistant photographer, traveling widely throughout Europe and America. Having won a film competition began Filmmakers Ltd. Started a new career as a filmmaker. Producing portrait documentaries on several artists and directing numerous commercials as well as making several films. Branched out into writing and directing theatre, created the ‘found theatre company’ and produced three works to date.

Theatrical Works

‘Hear Lies’ futurist adaptation of Orpheus and Eurydice. ‘Last Night – In the life of Antonin Artaud’ Time out critics choice of the week. ‘Beelzebum Sonanta’ written by Stanislaw Witkiewicz, 1925. The Gate Theatre. ‘Comedy, Irony, Satire and other Deeper Meanings’ written by Christian Grabbe’s 1822, The Gate. London.

Films and Documetaries

‘Boogie Woogie’ feature film, 2009. Three filmed stage performances of Tadeusz Kantors Cricotec2, Wielopole Wielopole, The Dead Class and Let the Artist Die. ‘Polish Matter’ film on Tadeusz Kantor. ‘Doorways to Dunbar’ series of short films dramatized for the web. Adapt Rilke’s Duino Elegies No.1,3 & 7. ‘Art & Space’ portrait of an art journey. Edinburgh Tapes film on a Paris theatre company. ‘The Reburial of Haile Selassi’ documentary. ‘Dead men don’t remember’ featuring Rachel Wiesz. ‘Tarasiewicz’ portrait of the polish artist Leon Tarasiewicz – Awards Genova film festival ’92. ‘Buzz’ director of two episodes of TV series for channel 4 & MTV. Imaginary Landscapes portrait on Brian Eno – Awards Golden gate film festival San Francisco ’90, Cork Film festival ’90, Genova film festival ’92. ‘Kantor’ portrait of theatre Director Tadeusz Kantor. – Awards Genova Film festival ’92 & Berlin Film festival ’87. ‘The making of Insignificance’ promotional film for Jeremy Thomas on Nic Roeg’s feature film Insignificance.

www.eyeplugin.com

Ernesto Rubin de Cervin studied composition in Florence with Roberto Lupi and Luigi Dallapiccola, and in Rome with Goffredo Detrassi and Virgilio Mortari.

From 1965-67 taught solfeggio at the Liceo Musicale Udine. Until 1985 analysis – composition and didactic composition at the Conservatorio Benedetto Marcello Venice. Has predominately written chamber music (string quartetts and for various chamber ensembles) as well as two major pieces – “Sine Nomine” for 31 instruments (1987) and “Divinità” for 64 chorists (1966). His work includes of what he calls Doni (gifts) – compositions for musician friends, also Omaggi (homages) to J.S. Bach and Alban Berg.

His music has been performed in various countries such as Germany, Austria, Belgium, UK, USA, Spain, Luxemburg and Italy. He published two novellas: “Passeggiata al Castello” (A walk to the castle) Palermo 1989. “Il Ragazzo in Tunica” (The boy in a tunic) Venice 1995. He has also written poetry and several essays on music.

Born in Germany, lives and works in London and Venice. She started her career as a fashion designer in Munich Germany. For the following years working in this field, including designing haute couture collections for a private clientele, she launched her inspiring own label ‘zwei’ in London, creating ‘modern clothes for working women’ for which she received the best British Design Award of the year 1982.

A long-running compulsion to design furniture led her to leave the fashion business, and study furniture design at the Royal College of Art London. Since graduating in 1993 she has worked as a designer for a number of renowned european furniture manufacturers, including Classicon, Wittmann and Habitat, as well as private commissions for clients including Gehlek Rimpoche and Issey Miyake. She has won numerous awards including two Red Dot Awards for high quality design and the International Design Award for longevity Baden-Württenberg. She had various exhibitions and a calling to the teaching profession that reflect her achievements, which go beyond the market success of her products.

Gioia designs have been publicized in countless books and international publications. In her approach to fashion lies her secret to success in furniture. What is astonishing given her fashion design background is the sophisticated nature of her furniture that embodies these concepts, combining timeless and aesthetic forms with stylish functionality without relinquishing sensuality and movement.

www.gioiadesign.com

Patrick Kinmonth is an Anglo Irish artist, writer and designer. Leaving Oxford University at the age of 20 with a first class degree in English Literature and Language, he began life as a painter. Meanwhile he has pursued his careers in both fashion and theatre.  In the former sphere he has collaborated extensively as a stylist and set designer, working most notably for Burberry, Gucci, Calvin Klein, Valentino, Givenchy and Jean Paul Gaultier for whom he has designed shops in Japan, Missoni for whom he has created fabric collections, Pirelli for whom he created the sets and scenarios for the 2001 calendar. As an art director and stylist his work has appeared in many publications from Vogue to Visionaire.

As a designer of sets and costumes for ballet, theatre and opera, his career began in 1992 with scenery adapted from his paintings for David Bintley’s Ballet Tombeaux for the Royal Ballet Covent Garden and in opera Kata Kabanova for the Canadian Opera Company with Robert Carsen in 1993. Designs for The Sleeping Beauty for Scottish Ballet and other productions followed; Handel’s Semele at the English National Opera, Die Zauberflote in Aix, Lyon and Vienna, and Janacek’s Jenufa in Ghent and Antwerp, Handel’s Tamerlano and Alcina in Sweden at the 18th century Royal Court Theatre, Drottningholm, outside Stockholm, The Cunning Little Vixen, La Clemenza di Tito and the critically acclaimed production of Wagner’s Ring Cycle 1999 which concluded with Gotterdammerung in 2003 and is now running at Teatro La Fenice in Venice until 2008. 2004 included designs for sets and costumes for a new Kata Kabanova with Robert Carsen at La Scala in Milan (Premio Abbiati 2006 Best Production) for whom he also designed La Traviata, which opened the restored Teatro La Fenice in Venice.  Patrick continued with further collaborations with Mario Testino including his new book Let Me IN (Taschen 2007), and Pierre Audi at The Netherlands Opera for whom he designed operas by Handel and Rameau 2005 and 2006 in Amsterdam and Stockholm where he designed the film of Rameau’s Zoroastre on DVD Diapaison d’Or Best Opera Design 2006. Operas in 2007 include a new Semele in Zurich with Cecilia Bartoli, works by Monteverdi Il Ballo del Ingrate and Rameau Castor et Pollux in Amsterdam, Elektra by Strauss in Barcelona as well as plans to direct and design Madam Butterfly in Koln 2008, and further productions in Vienna, Paris and New York. Also in New York as Creative Consultant to the Metropolitan Museum he has designed and installed the major fashion history exhibitions for the Costume Institute Dangerous Liaisons: french fashion in the 18th century 2004 and Anglomania: tradition and transgression in British Fashion, 2006, both of which were installed in the main galleries of the Metropolitan Museum and are the most successful exhibitions ever mounted at the Museum where his new interiors for the Wrightsman Galleries will open in October 2007. In July his installation with Antonio Monfreda of a major retrospective of the work of Valentino will open in the Ara Pacis museum in Rome.

Il Quartetto Novecento si è formato nel 2000 all’interno del Conservatorio “B. Marcello” di Venezia. Il nome è legato all’intenzione di rivolgere un particolare attenzione alla produzione contemporanea e alla musica del Novecento storico, accostandola al repertorio classico.

Nel 2001 e 2002 ha studiato con il M° Franco Rossi ai Corsi Internazionali di Perfezionamento in Musica da Camera di Città di Castello e presso la scuola di Musica di Sesto Fiorentino; nel 2003 ha frequentato la Scuola di Concertismo del Fondo Ottorino Respighi presso la Fondazione Cini di Venezia sotto la guida del M° Eugenio Bagnoli. Successivamente ha seguito i Corsi di Perfezionamento all’ “Accademia Europea del Quartetto” a Fiesole tenuti dai Maestri Piero Farulli (Quartetto Italiano), Norbert Brainin (Quartetto Amadeus), Milan Skampa (Quartetto Smetana), Hatto Beyerle (Quartetto Alban Berg).

Ha tenuto concerti per gli “Amici della Musica”, il “Festival delle Città” dell’Estate Musicale di Portogruaro, gli “Incontri Musicali a Villa S.Lorenzo” di Sesto Fiorentino, il “Teatro degli Illuminati” a Città di Castello, l’associazione “Musae” di Pordenone e a Venezia per il Conservatorio “B.Marcello, la “Fondazione Levi” nel ciclo “Storia del sonar a quattro”, l’Archivio Nono e l’ “Associazione Italo-Tedesca”. Ha eseguito il “Fragmente-Stille, an Diotima” di Luigi Nono alla “Fondazione Giorgio Cini” di Venezia nell’ambito del convegno internazionale su “Petrucci e la musica a Venezia nel XX secolo”, al teatrino Groggia di Venezia per l’inaugurazione della stagione “Groggia Modern” e all’Auditorium “Canneti” di Vicenza in chiusura della mostra organizzata per l’80° anniversario dalla nascita dell’autore. Sempre alla Fondazione Cini ha suonato in occasione dell’incontro di studi su “Il ciclo dei dialoghi di Gian Francesco Malipiero”.

Ha eseguito il quintetto con pianoforte di Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari in chiusura della conferenza stampa per la Firma per l’Istituzione dell’Orchestra Regionale dei Conservatori del Veneto. Recentemente ha suonato “Le dissonanze” di W. A. Mozart alla Libreria Mondadori di Venezia per la presentazione del libro “La notte delle dissonanze” (EDT) di Sandro Cappelletto E’quartetto residente del Teatro Groggia di Venezia, dove ha partecipato alle serate monografiche dedicate a Evangelisti, Amendola, Maderna, Ives, al Novecento Ungherese, e dove ha eseguito prime assolute di Giovanni Mancuso, Janusz Podrazik, Mario Pagotto.

Una sua recente esecuzione di “Capriccio on B.A.C.H.” di Mario Pagotto, scritta per il Quartetto Novecento e il Laboratorio Novamusica, è stata trasmessa dalla RAI.
Ha ottenuto diverse borse di studio, tra cui quella della Fondazione Bucchi di Roma in qualità di finalista al XXV Concorso internazionale di esecuzione “Valentino Bucchi” di Roma.

Angelica Faccani violino
Gabriele Gastaldello violino
Francesca Canova viola
Angelo Maria Santisi violoncello

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At the side of artistic studies at Academy of Arts  he has attended the classes of Giuseppe Sinopoli and Ernesto Rubin de Cervin at the Conservatory of Music in Venice  during the Seventies.

Since 1979, the year of his debut at the Venice Biennale, he has partecipated in many of the main musical festivals in Italy, including: Cantiere Internazionale d’Arte di Montepulciano, Festival Pontino, Ater Forum, Stagione Sinfonica dell’Orchestra della Rai di Torino 1988, Rassegna Eco e Narciso (Milano 1988), Rassegna Dialogo con Maderna (Milano 1989), Nuova Musica Italiana , Roma Europa, Antidogma, Nuova Consonanza, Trieste Prima, Festival Musica d’Oggi, Festival Internazionale di Venezia, Settembre Musica, Rive Gauche Concerti, Finestre sul ‘900, Arcipelago Musica.

He has partecipated in many important musical events abroad: Ferienkursen Darmstadt, Festival Bartok Szombathely, Biennale of Berlin, Art Musica Bruxelles, Aspekte Salzburg, Settembre Musica in Peking (1999), Symphonic Season OCSA (Asuncion-Paraguay 2002) and others.

On 2005 he has been invited twice in Japan, where he conducted  a monographic concert of his music at the Denki Bunka Kaikan in Nagoya during  the Expo Aichi (July) and a second concert at the Oji Hall in Ginza, Tokyo (November). On 2007 he  conducted other two concert in Japan at Suntory Hall in Tokyo and at Munetsugu Hall in Nagoya with a programm of his music and music of other composers. He is regulary present on the radio programmes in Italy and he has partecipated at the  main internationales broadcasting programmes too.

Among his works:  Trio for viola, cello and bass (1978); “Der Himmel steht in Flammen” for 6 mixed voices a cappella (1985); Cantos (Songs) for 2 sopranos (1986); Fragmenti Lirici [Lyric Fragments] for 10 winds, piano, harp and 2 percussionists (1986); Aria for soprano and orchestra (1988); Refrain for orchestra (1989); Coro per Maderna [Chorus for Maderna] for 3 mixed choruses (1989); Trio for violin, cello and piano (1991); Doppio Enigma [Double Enigma], momodrama for actor and 4 instruments (1992); Aurora, nel grande Silenzio, [Aurora in Grand Silence] for clarinet and 5 mixed voices (1993); Uomo, vita e passione di Maiakovski secondo Maiakovski [Man, the Life and Passion of Mayakovsky according to Mayakovsky], radiovideomonodrama for actors, mezzo soprano, 4 instruments, percussion and synthetic sound (1997/2008); Le Quattro Stagioni [The Four Seasons], concerto in 4 tempos for flute, strings and cembalo (1998); Voodoo Child, re-elaboration for flute on 13 songs by Jimi Hendrix (1999); Coup de theatre for symphonic band (2000); Gloria for soprano, contralto, chorus, 2 electric guitars, bass and organ (2002); Divina Commedia: VIII Cerchio: Malebolge, for piano (from Dante Alighieri, 2004-7); Allologie, for two Harps and speaking voices (2006); Viaggio solitario nella città dell’acqua, for flute and strings (2007). His pieces have been published by Raitrade, Ricordi, Edipan, Agenda, Penthaflowers. 

He has taught, composition, harmony, theory and solfeggio at conservatories in Venice, Turin, Bari, Potenza, Udine, Trieste, Alessandria and Adria. He has been artistic director of the International Festival of Venice from 1998 to 2002 and a member of the Venice Association of Composers (Venice Musica Nuova) from 1992 to 2002.

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Born in Venice in 1970, Mancuso studied piano at the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory, Venice, with Wally Rizzardo, composition at the International Composition Courses, Città di Castello (Perugia 1990 and 1991) and at the Philharmonic Academy in Bologna (1991-1992) with Salvatore Sciarrino.

Mancuso followed graduate courses in chamber music at the “Incontri col Maestro” Academy of Imola, where he studied with Dario de Rosa, Maureen Jones, Pier Narciso Masi, receiving a diploma with special mention. He continued his studies in Milan at the Scuola Civica with Renato Rivolta, concentrating on contemporary music. He studied jazz with Umberto de Nigris.

Giovanni Mancuso since, has developed a busy concert career both as pianist and as conductor; his recent engagements have been in Italy, Portugal, Lebanon and Norway. He has recorded for the Norwegian Broadcasting Company and for the RAI, Italian national Radio.

He has won many composition competitions, among which: the Grieg Memorial in Oslo, the Città di Rende, the Castagneto Carducci in Livorno, and has received special mention for others, the “Athenaeum N.A.E.” of Rome, the “Contemporanea Neopolesis” of Palermo competitions.

His compositions have been played on the radio in several countries, Italy, France, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Germany, Brazil, Lebanon, U.S.A. Some of his compositions are published by Edipan, Rome, by CMP, Pescara-Brussels, and by Senz’h Edizioni, Rome; he was commissioned to write a string quartet by the Venice Biennale 2001.

Mancuso is founder and leader of the ensemble Laboratorio Novamusica, which enjoys a busy concert life, Mancuso conducting and performing as pianist. He has conducted many world premieres, among which works by Fabio Nieder, Olga Neuwirth, Luca Mosca, Lars Graugaard, Betty Olivero; the ensemble, with Mancuso conducting, featured in the festival “L’Altra Scena” in Venice in 1999 and in the festival “Biennale Musica” in Venice in 2000.

www.laboratorionovamusica.it