Dante Tanzi on John Cage: I think that John Cage showed us how to re-create relationships among differences, event the extreme ones concerning the nature of musical communication and the nature of everyday life.
Into Another Space, 2009 (recording)
Biography
I think that John Cage showed us how to re-create relationships among differences, event the extreme ones concerning the nature of musical communication and the nature of everyday life.
I think that John Cage showed us how to re-create relationships among differences, event the extreme ones concerning the nature of musical communication and the nature of everyday life. What mainly impress me was his capability, as an artist and human being, of putting into question the linear conception of musical time and reversing meanings into their opposite. In some way, I hope that his thought affects my way of producing music. Often I look for conflicts between the sonorous materials and then try to deal with them without taking into account the symbolic references of sounds. In developing a piece I prefer to start from an episode, from which he derives the preceding and subsequent ones. In their turn these new episodes form fresh starting points for the same procedure. This leads to an endless chain, as one piece can develop from another through a sort of intertextual writing.
Dante Tanzi interprets 'De Natura Sonorum' by Bernard Parmegiani, at the console of acousmonium SATOR of Centro Culturale San Fedele, Milan, January 30, 2012
Into Another Space (20:15) was based on some fragments of the voice of John Cage, recorded by WNYC and broadcast as Evening music: the voice of John Cage. The fragments, excerpted from What you Say and ‘Lecture of Nothing offer sonorous itinerary as well as poetic reflections. When Cage alludes to different spaces, and times, his voice open a dialog between the sounds and the meanings of the words. Through poetics of repetition he communicates hope and irony, and with every repetition, words like ‘times’, ‘space’ ‘function’ and ‘miniaturize’ seems to take different aura. In such a way the voice reveals both ethereal and bodily consistence, which re-appears even being submerged by clusters, distorted, blurred with other voices or dispersed in the midst of chaotic sonority.
Performances of Into Another Space:
Festival LICENCES, 2009, Paris. Artistic Director Alexandre Yterce, acousmatic composer and interpreter, actor, painter, Founder of Edition LICENCES
Biography
Dante Tanzi using MAX-MSP with the group 'Whitepage', during a live electronics performance, July 2010
After majoring in Philosophy, Dante Tanzi went on to study composition and electroacoustic music. Since 1988 his compositions (mixed and electroacoustic) have been performed in Rome (CIM 1988), Zurich (Euromicro 1988), Genova (Music and Artificial Intelligence 1988), Moscow (Italia 2000 1988) Milan (Musica Nel Nostro tempo, 1989, CIM 1993), Lugano (Computer Music Concert 1991) Montreal (ÉuCuE 2001), Collective Jukebox 2000-2004, Como (Elettrosensi 2004), Crest (Futura 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011), Paris (Palais de Tokio 2006, LICENCES 2007, 2008, 2009), and Huddersfield (ICMC 2011). From 1985 to 2009 he was a member of L.I.M., the Musical Informatics Laboratory of the University of Milan. Besides taking an active part in the cultural and artistic initiatives of the laboratory, he has participated in research projects on the development of s/w tools for musical and multimedia performance and pilot projects for the recuperation of musical heritages. This variety of experiences has led him to explore the changes in musical communication brought about by digital technologies. He has published essays on CTheory, Leonardo Music Journal, Leonardo, Organised Sound, Cogito, Crossings, Contemporary Music Review.