ORT – Orchestra della Toscana

The Orchestra della Toscana had Luciano Berio as artistic director in the 80s and is naturally dedicated to contemporary music. In Venice it will be conducted by Peter Rundel in a concert with works by the finest composers of our time: Michel Van der Aa, Wolfgang Rihm, both with Italian premiere performances, and Claudio Ambrosini, with a new piece commissioned by La Biennale.

The title Hysteresis by Michel van der Aa refers to a phenomenon by which a system depends in equal measure on its present environment and its past, hence on its “memory”: the “memory” of sounds, editing processes and sound design in music that has been elaborated, manipulated and transformed like a piece of clay around the solo clarinet.
In Konzert in einem Satz Wolfgang Rihm relies on the classic concertante form: the solo cello emerges in passages that are clearly soloist and in two cadenzas, while the orchestra performs the intermezzos.
Rappresentazione di anima e di corpo by Claudio Ambrosini has no relationship to the famous work by Emilio de’ Cavalieri except the title. Between body and soul there is no conflict, but on the contrary they seek a positive synthesis: it all begins with the word anemos (breath, spirit, heart but also soul, life). Body is the material of the clarinet and the vocal cords, heart/soul is the breath that flows through them and becomes life, is transformed into sound, song, words…