ANALYSIS:
Amo, soffro, lotto – Analysis by Paolo Sullo
REVIEWS (Selection):
La terra e la morte – Review by Gianluigi Mattietti
Caterina Di Cecca’s music often plays on the mechanisms of perception, on the osmotic and ambivalent relationship between figure and ground, in a process that continually moves from the overall colour to timbral detail. Her meticulous work on sound arises from a profound urgency, closely connected to the idiomatic possibilities of the instruments, to the performer’s gesture, and also to the intrinsic qualities of the voice, as a vehicle for words and meaning as well as for sound. In all her vocal works, the relationship with the text is extremely close: the text is always understood as a structural element to be explored in depth, in order to investigate its timbral and rhythmic properties, which become primary compositional elements.
La musica di Caterina Di Cecca gioca spesso sui meccanismi della percezione, sulla relazione osmotica e ambivalente tra figura e sfondo, in un percorso che passa in continuazione dal colore generale al dettaglio timbrico. Il meticoloso lavoro sul suono nasce da un'urgenza profonda, strettamente legata alle possibilità idiomatiche degli strumenti, al gesto dell'interprete, ma anche alle qualità proprie della voce, come veicolo di parole e di senso, oltre che di suono. In tutti i suoi lavori vocali è strettissimo il rapporto con il testo, inteso sempre come elemento strutturale nel quale scavare per indagarne le proprietà timbriche e ritmiche che diventano elementi compositivi primari.
À rebours. Tosca su Tosca – Review by Francesca Vatteroni
On Friday, 14 July, the evening opened with Caterina Di Cecca’s composition À rebours, which offered a powerful reappraisal of the female character in Puccini’s opera, a close-up on the figure of Tosca. The work unfolded as a stream of consciousness, retracing backwards the day that had just passed after the trauma experienced by the woman: the death of her beloved. The music was able to describe that suspended moment, that instant in which one becomes aware of having lost something — an icy stillness that breaks within us and from which there is no return. Words and sparse sounds struck directly at the heart, giving the work great emotional intensity.
Venerdì 14 luglio, si apre la serata con la composizione di Caterina di Cecca – À rebours – che è stata una grande rivalutazione del personaggio femminile dell'opera pucciniana, uno zoom sulla figura di Tosca. L'opera è stata un flusso di coscienza che ha ripercorso a ritroso la giornata appena trascorsa dopo il trauma vissuto dalla donna: la morte del suo amato. La musica ha saputo descrivere quel momento bloccato, quell'istante in cui ci si rende conto di aver perso qualcosa, una fissità ghiacciata che si spezza dentro di noi e da cui non vi è più ritorno. Parole e pochi suoni hanno colto nel cuore e hanno dato intensità emotiva.
In cerchi concentrici – Review by Enrico Esposito
Daniele Rustioni, one of today’s most acclaimed conductors, led an ensemble of more than ninety musicians, opening the programme with the world premiere of In cerchi concentrici, a concerto for trumpet and orchestra by the young and talented Roman composer Caterina Di Cecca. […] Taking its title from a poem of the same name by Rainer Maria Rilke, the composition proved to be dynamic and profound, unfolding through a constant encounter between the solo voice of the trumpet and the chromatic plurality expressed by the orchestra, staging the dialectic between the one and the many in its multiple nuances. The individual follows an exploratory path, a personal journey interspersed with dialogue with other individualities and their worlds. It is a driving and polyphonic journey, conveying exemplary dreams as well as bitter reflections and rigorous hopes. De Sena gives an imaginative performance, as is his tradition, enhancing both the orchestra and Rustioni’s conducting.
Daniele Rustioni, uno dei più affermati direttori d'orchestra attuali, ha diretto una compagine che ha superato i novanta elementi, aprendo il programma con la prima esecuzione in assoluto di "In cerchi concentrici", concerto per tromba e orchestra firmato dalla giovane e talentuosa compositrice romana Caterina di Cecca. [...] Traendo il proprio titolo da una poesia omonima di Rainer Maria Rilke, la composizione si è presentata dinamica e profonda, sviluppandosi in un costante incontro tra la voce solista della tromba e la pluralità cromatica espressa dall'orchestra che inscenano la dialettica uno/tutti nelle sue molteplici sfumature. Il singolo che compie un suo percorso esplorativo, un viaggio personale intervallato con il dialogo con altre individualità e i loro mondi. Un percorso incalzante e polifonico che trasmette sogni esemplari ma anche riflessioni amare, speranze rigorose. De Sena regala una performance estrosa come da tradizione esaltando l'orchestra e la direzione di Rustioni.
In cerchi concentrici – Review by Francesco Ermini Polacci
In a crowded and festive Teatro Verdi, the ORT opened its season with a concert whose chronicle is that of a formidable tour de force. The programme included Strauss’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Stravinsky’s Petrushka and Ravel’s La Valse, works whose fascination goes hand in hand with their technical difficulty. Moreover, the evening opened with the world premiere of Caterina Di Cecca’s In cerchi concentrici: a fabric of suspended sonorities into which Donato De Sena’s trumpet skilfully insinuated itself. The response of the ORT — such only in name, since the ensemble was almost tripled by the necessary additional players — was alert and dynamic: everyone played with the enthusiasm and conviction conveyed to them from the podium by Daniele Rustioni.
In un Teatro Verdi affollato e festoso, l'Ort inaugura la sua stagione con un concerto la cui cronaca è quella di un tremendo tour de force. Perché in programma ci sono "Così parlo Zarathustra" di Strauss, "Petrouchka" di Stravinsky e "La Valse" di Ravel, e il loro fascino va di pari passo con la difficoltà esecutiva; senza contare che ad aprire la serata è "In cerchi concentrici" di Caterina Di Cecca, in prima assoluta: una trama di sonorità sospese, dove si insinua con abilità la tromba di Donato De Sena. La risposta dell'Ort (che tale è solo nel nome perché l'organico è quasi triplicato dalle necessarie parti aggiunte) è pronta e dinamica: suonano tutti con l'entusiasmo e la convinzione che dal podio trasmette loro Daniele Rustioni.
Il dubbio della marionetta – Review by Versipel New Music
Versipel New Music kicks off its fourth season with an evening of stunning contemporary chamber music from around the world. These works touch on a number of complex musical grammars. From the delicate, almost brittle, textural introspections of Caterina Di Cecca’s quintet Il Dubbio Della Marionetta to the obsessively fragmented counterpoint of William Cole’s trio Bind Weave Spin, this collection of works reflects upon grammars of recent past as well as points towards new ways of instrumental gesture and interaction.
Another part of the heath. Storm still. – Review by Emanuele Lavizzari
The programme closes with Caterina Di Cecca’s Another part of the heath. Storm still. The composition takes its title from the stage direction that precedes the monologue in Act III of William Shakespeare’s King Lear. Voices and instruments intertwine their parts, at times pursuing one another and, in other passages, blending together, until they flow into a crescendo that culminates in the final climax. The performance by Neue Vocalsolisten and Divertimento Ensemble was truly intense, effectively conveying all the experimental tension of these young composers.
Il programma si chiude con Another part of the heath. Storm still. di Caterina Di Cecca. La composizione prende nome dall’indicazione di scena che precede il monologo contenuto nel III atto del King Lear di William Shakespeare. Voci e strumenti intrecciano le proprie parti, talvolta si inseguono e in altri passaggi si amalgamano, fino a sfociare in un crescendo che culmina nel climax finale. Un’esecuzione davvero intensa quella dei Neue Vocalsolisten e di Divertimento Ensemble, che ha saputo trasmettere in maniera efficace tutta la tensione sperimentatrice di questi giovani compositori.
Oscuro Pintado – Review by Emiliano Michelon
The source of inspiration for Caterina Di Cecca’s Oscuro Pintado is Francisco Goya’s Pinturas Negras cycle, in which the celebrated artist poured out all the ghosts and anguish of his old age. The intention — successfully achieved — is to translate into music the feelings conveyed by the paintings: rhythmic and timbral contrasts develop the material towards an extremely dark conclusion, leaving no hope for the future.
La fonte di ispirazione di Oscuro Pintado di Caterina Di Cecca è il ciclo delle Pinturas Negras di Francisco Goya, in cui il celebre artista riversa tutti i fantasmi e l'angoscia della sua vecchiaia. L'intenzione - ben riuscita - è quella di tradurre in musica i sentimenti trasmessi dai dipinti: contrasti ritmici e timbrici sviluppano il tema fino a una conclusione cupissima, che non lascia speranze per il futuro.
Funeral Play – Review by Letizia Michielon
The existential issue linked to distorted family dynamics also characterises Funeral Play, a paroxysmal staging of a true story that took place in China in 2013: the desire not to miss the celebration of her own funeral had led the twenty-three-year-old Zeng Jia to the absurd decision to organise her own funeral ceremony and take part in it at the same time. In Sara Cavosi’s libretto, however, the motivations of the protagonist Aika, performed by the skilful and worldly-wise Kurumi Yanagi, lie in an unresolved grief caused by the loss of her mother and in the desire to attract the attention of an emotionally distant father, portrayed by the bass Xiao Shengtao.
The funeral monument towers at the centre of the stage, surrounded by a white curtain onto which advertising slogans from funeral companies specialising in farewell ceremonies are projected. Aika invites her followers to her funeral, and the coffin becomes a neutral space which, through the lighting, can also take on the appearance of an iPhone with a glowing screen. Caterina Di Cecca’s score outlines icy stillnesses and evokes the annihilating absence that characterises death.
La problematica esistenziale legata a distorte dinamiche familiari caratterizza anche Funeral Play, parossistica messa in scena di una storia vera, avvenuta in Cina nel 2013: il desiderio di non perdere la festa del proprio funerale aveva spinto infatti la ventitreenne Zeng Jia all’assurda decisione di organizzare la propria cerimonia funebre e di prendervi contemporaneamente parte. Nel libretto di Sara Cavosi, però, le motivazioni della protagonista Aika, interpretata dall’abile e smaliziata Kurumi Yanagi, risiedono in un lutto non superato suscitato dalla perdita della madre e dal desiderio di attirare le attenzioni di un padre anaffettivo, impersonato dal basso Xiao Shengtao. Il monumento funebre troneggia al centro della scena, circondato da un sipario bianco su cui vengono proiettate scritte pubblicitarie di imprese funerarie specializzate in cerimonie di commiato. Aika invita i propri follower al suo funerale e la bara si trasforma in uno spazio neutro che grazie alle luci può assumere anche le sembianze di un iPhone dallo schermo luminoso. La partitura di Caterina Di Cecca staglia fissità ghiacciate e rievoca l’annichilente assenza che caratterizza la morte.
Dédalo y Sensación – Review on Zbruc.eu
The dramaturgy of her work conveyed the plot of its literary source — Mario Vargas Llosa’s novel In Praise of the Stepmother — so vividly that I myself wanted to read it. It was not merely a matter of musical dialogues between piano, cello and violin, but of a true “love triangle” — father, son and the father’s new wife — embodied through the voices of the instruments. Perhaps it would make a good operatic plot. But is it really necessary to write an opera, when the young composer has managed to convey the situation so truthfully without unnecessary words or stage action?
La drammaturgia del suo lavoro ha trasmesso così vividamente la trama della fonte letteraria (il romanzo "Elogio della matrigna" di Mario Vargas Llosa) che io stesso volevo leggerlo. Non si trattava solo di dialoghi musicali tra pianoforte, violoncello e violino, ma di un vero e proprio 'triangolo amoroso' (padre, figlio, nuova moglie del padre) incarnato attraverso le voci degli strumenti. Forse sarebbe una buona trama d’opera. Ma è necessario scrivere un'opera se la giovane compositrice è riuscita a trasmettere la situazione in modo così veritiero senza parole inutili e azioni sceniche?
INTERVIEWS (Selection):
06.02.2026 Interview with Shannon Wettstein
What was the inspiration for the piece Filigrane Scarlatte?
The initial impulse for writing the piece came from a composition competition launched in 2015 to mark the 330th anniversary of Domenico Scarlatti’s birth. The brief invited composers to create a work that would enter into dialogue with Scarlatti’s musical world while reimagining it through a contemporary voice.
I decided to take part because I found the challenge genuinely stimulating: to identify elements in Scarlatti’s music that feel archetypal and timeless, and to transform them into the thematic material of a new work of my own — not a literal homage, but a living continuation of what I perceived as universal aspects of his musical thinking.
What is the piece “about”?
Filigrane Scarlatte is a tribute to Domenico Scarlatti. Rather than quoting his Sonata K. 136 in E major, the piece engages with its musical grammar: the way gestures unfold, how articulation shapes energy, and how motion is propelled across the keyboard.
What interested me was not imitation, but reactivation: taking something essential in Scarlatti’s writing — its physicality, its clarity of impulse, its virtuosity rooted in the instrument — and allowing it to generate a contemporary discourse. In this sense, the piece aims to preserve a sense of kinetic drive and sonic impact, even though the harmonic language and expressive context are entirely my own.
The result is a highly virtuosic work that foregrounds idiomatic keyboard writing. Rapid changes of register, sharp contrasts of texture, repeated-note figures, and chordal masses become structural forces, shaping the form from within.
Tell us something interesting or surprising about your process of creating this piece.
What surprised me most was hearing the piece performed alongside Scarlatti’s Sonata K. 136 and realizing how close the two works could feel in terms of overall sonic impact, despite their completely different musical languages. That confirmed to me that I was not “quoting” Scarlatti so much as working with his musical DNA.
The features that guided my writing were very concrete: the two broad descending gestures across the register at the beginning of the sonata, the sudden modal shift, the clash between distinct harmonic fields, the insistence of repeated notes, and the return of a descending drive that dominates the remainder of the work, together with its characteristic chordal blocks.
In Filigrane Scarlatte, these elements are transformed into a pervasive downward tension, interrupted by a suspended central section in which two distant worlds — in terms of harmonic field, articulation, and register — are set against one another.
There is also a small but essential performative detail: because the work is so focused on extreme register “arrivals,” the pianist prepares the instrument by placing a small amount of Patafix/Blu-Tack on the strings of the highest E, to produce an inharmonic resonance, and on the lowest E, to produce a harmonic resonance. It is a subtle intervention, but it makes those extremes feel physically and acoustically “conquered,” turning them into unmistakable points of arrival.
What are you working on now?
At the moment, I am working on a ten-minute piece for concert accordion duo, to be premiered this December in Rome. It is titled In viriditate et in floribus, and I care about it deeply: the thematic, formal, and harmonic decisions I am making are pushing my musical language forward and expanding the vocabulary I have been developing.
Alongside this, I am also shaping a much larger project: an extended work for voices and large ensemble, which is taking up a great deal of my time and attention. It is still in development, so I will be able to speak about it in more detail once it has taken more concrete form.
What keeps you inspired and motivated, and what stimulates your creativity? What is your “why” for creating music?
I would answer with a sentence from Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet:
"Above all, in the most silent hour of your night, ask yourself this: Must I write? Dig deep into yourself for a true answer. And if it should ring its assent, if you can confidently meet this serious question with a simple, "I must," then build your life upon it."
That is close to how I experience composing. Creation springs from necessity — an impulse I do not so much control as follow. It is not something I can switch on and off; it is an inner pressure that insists on taking shape, asking for time, silence, and attention until it finds its own form.
What keeps me motivated is that nothing else gives me what composing gives me: the feeling of being fully aligned with myself, and of transforming something intangible into sound that can be heard and shared. In that process, I find clarity, risk, and truth at the same time — and that, more than any external result, is my “why.”
25.06.2021 Interview with David Christoffel
15.06.2021 Interview with Enrico Girardi
31.05.2021 Interview with Stefano Taglietti
20.01.2020 Interview with Paolo Giorcelli
Composer Caterina Di Cecca is the author of La Via Isoscele della Sera, a work for strings that the ensemble I Solisti Aquilani will present as a world premiere on Monday, 20 January 2020, at the Teatro Carlo Felice.
The concert will also feature internationally renowned guitarist Manuel Barrueco and bandoneonist Cesare Chiacchiaretta.
La Via Isoscele della Sera won the 4th “Francesco Agnello” National Composition Competition in 2018.
On the occasion of the Genoa premiere, Caterina Di Cecca discusses her work and her activity as a highly regarded composer whose music has reached both Europe and America.
Paolo Giorcelli: How did your composition La Via Isoscele della Sera come into being?
The call for the 4th “Francesco Agnello” National Composition Competition required the submission of an unpublished score for string orchestra.
Since I had long wanted to compose for this ensemble, I took the opportunity to engage with the idiomatic writing of string instruments, which I find extremely versatile and capable of adapting to the demands of the contemporary world, both technically and expressively.
P G: The title of your composition, La Via Isoscele della Sera, is taken from a line of the poem Distacco by Anna Akhmatova. Could you explain and elaborate on the connection you have created between poetry and music?
The title of this composition is taken from a line of the poem Distacco by Anna Akhmatova.
The idea of an event or a person moving away until dissolving or disappearing is something that can occur only on the level of facts, but not on that of the psyche. Every significant element that has played a role in our life accompanies us and never truly leaves us. It becomes part of us, to the point that we are no longer able to separate our essence from the experiences that have shaped it over the years.
In my piece, my intention is to represent in music what is described above. There are three situations, corresponding respectively to three movements played without interruption, which reappear in fragmentary form. Their circularity makes them increasingly charged with meaning, and becomes ever more evident and tightly woven until the final accumulation.
P G: With this work, you won the 4th “Francesco Agnello” National Composition Competition in 2018. Maestra Di Cecca, what did this victory mean for your career?
Winning the 4th “Francesco Agnello” National Composition Competition was very important to me, because national and international composition competitions rarely support the work of those who write music by offering the possibility of hearing their piece performed more than once.
I believe it is truly necessary, in order to do justice to a new score, for the musicians involved to be able to perform the same piece in public repeatedly, since this makes it easier for them to come ever closer to the composer’s real intention.
P G: Maestra Di Cecca, you are active as a composer in Italy and abroad; your scores have been performed in Europe and America, and you have received commissions from renowned institutions such as La Biennale di Venezia and the Fondazione Spinola Banna per l’Arte. How would you describe your activity?
I have always loved writing music, and immediately after my studies at the conservatory I tried to make it my life’s work.
I began by composing many pieces without worrying about whether they would be performed in the future.
At a later stage, I became aware of the need to hear my works live, and I tried to achieve this goal by taking part in numerous competitions.
Fortunately, I received frequent positive responses, which allowed me to establish myself and become known first abroad, and now also in Italy.
19.10.2018 Interview with Tim Rutherford-Johnson
On Wednesday 31 October at the Warehouse in London we will be playing Jonathan Harvey’s masterful Song Offerings, the world premiere of Benjamin Graves’s Four Facades, and new pieces from two of our 2018 Call for Scores winners, Caterina di Cecca and Judit Varga. Caterina, who is based in Rome, spoke to us about saxophone potential, the poetry of Rilke and Pavese, and her research on personal branding for musicians.
Tim Rutherford-Johnson: Hi Caterina! The piece you have written for us has an unusual title, Die Brücken hinter uns – ‘the bridges behind us’. Could you start by telling us something about the background to the piece? Where does the title come from, for example? And what are the inspirations behind the work?
Caterina di Cecca: ‘Die Brücken hinter uns’ is a phrase in R. M. Rilke’s book entitled Notizen zur Melodie der Dinge – ‘Notes on the Melody of Things’.
I share Rilke’s view that we all live on different islands, but that the islands are not far enough apart for us to stay solitary. The only way to interact is to make dangerous leaps from one island to another, each time risking falling back to where we were before. This is not strange in fact because the only way to really connect with others is to consider the background that links us together.
Our fulfillments take place deep in the radiant backgrounds. There, in the background, is motion, and will. There play out the histories; we are only the dark headlines. There is our reconciliation and our leave-taking, our consolation and sorrow. There, we are, while here in the foreground we only come and go. (Rilke, Notizen zur Melodie der Dinge, XVIII)
All conflict, all error, comes from the fact that people look for what they have in common in themselves, not in the things behind them, in the light, in the landscape, in the beginning, and in death. They lose themselves and gain nothing in return. They mingle with each other because they cannot truly unite themselves. (Rilke, Notizen zur Melodie der Dinge, XXXVII)
I found the type of relationship described above between solo/tutti, foreground/background very suitable for transposition into music, and this piece will be the first in a series whose formal structure derives from these assumptions.
In my work strong and incisive gestures emerge from an indistinct and magmatic situation and are given to the saxophone. The various potentials of this multifaceted instrument (percussive, melodic, articulative and timbral) are exploited, and it plays a pre-eminent role. In the beginning, in fact, its interventions motivate changes in the rest of the ensemble. Later, however, the soloist adapts and conforms more and more to what appeared at first as simply its background, recognizing its value and becoming part of it in an organic way.
TR-J: Looking at the score lots of the saxophone part is written using just keyslaps and other noise effects. How important is noise in your music, and what approach do you use to compose with it? Are you led by your ear, for example, or the capabilities of the instrument, or do you have some other system?
CdC: In my opinion noise is just a continuation and expansion of sound itself. For this reason, I do not consider it as a stand-alone element, but rather as a further possibility in the palette available to me when I am composing.
Talking to performers, combined with listening to and analysis of recent scores, has allowed me to reflect on noises in the same way as on sounds and therefore to be guided by my ear and my imagination. In addition, I always take into account the mechanics of the instrument and its physical, acoustic, and technical limits.
In the specific case of Die Brücken hinter uns, I gave many noise effects to the saxophone for two reasons: The first is to obtain specific and characteristic timbre and articulations that cannot be realized in any other way. The second is to emphasize its idiomatic possibilities to ensure that its interventions differ markedly from those of the other instruments of the ensemble, which have a homogeneous quality, since they are intended to be perceived as a unity.
TR-J: In 2012 and 2013 you studied with Alessandro Solbiati, who taught another of our favourite composers, Clara Iannotta. Solbiati’s music is almost completely unknown in the UK; What drew you to him as a teacher, and what did you learn from him?
CdC: Alessandro Solbiati was suggested to me by a colleague after I had already completed my academic studies.
Our meeting was a significant moment in defining my personal identity as a composer, since it allowed me to get in touch with and learn the techniques of Francesco Donatoni, who was his professor.
I really appreciate the Socratic quality of his teaching method: he succeeds in getting the real potential out of his students without imposing his own conception of music. In fact, all his students who have had international success compose in their own language, rather than a univocal school of thought.
TR-J: I understand you have also written a thesis on ‘Personal Branding for Musicians’. What three bits of branding advice would you give to a young composer?
CdC:
1. Seek and find your own personal identity and derive your own aesthetics/poetics from it, in such a way to become a recognizable brand (Personal Branding).
2. Identify your target audience, choose on the internet the social networks and platforms on which you want to be active and make your online profiles meaningful and unique, offering something that is always valid and ascribable to what you want to say/give (Net Branding).
This is easier said than done in today’s world, since we are all buried beneath the suggestions and ideas of others. We must try not to be influenced by trends and fashions or affiliated with academies and schools, but to choose paths off the beaten tracks and develop a critical and creative way of thinking that comes approaches our deeper being and our conception of music.
Once we have identified and created our brand, it is important to remain faithful to who we really are, always ready to grow through the stimuli around us. This is the only strategy that works: it makes no sense to play a non-existent character who does not represent us.
If you follow these guidelines, the public will feel involved and become active and responsive, helping you spontaneously to share your content.
3. Promote your works and ongoing projects through your own channels in such a way as to keep your followers constantly interested in the route you are following.
Once online attention has been gained, it must be maintained with timely updates that allow the public to feel involved in our artistic and human journey.
TR-J: You have a strong international profile, with lots of commissions and awards from around the world. What is next on your agenda?
CdC: I have a series of commissions, some of which I care very much about. The next one coming up is thanks to an artistic residency I will be undertaking for the 2018/2019 season at the Tenuta dello Scompiglio, a wonderful country estate located in Lucca.
My project, a response to the international open call Della morte e del morire – ‘Of death and dying’, will be made in collaboration with Blow Up Percussion, a percussion quartet based in Rome. It will be performed outdoors, taking advantage of the characteristics and peculiarities of the landscape and the setting.
It is a stage/musical work called Mono no Aware – L’intensità agrodolce delle cose (‘The ahhness of things – The bitter-sweet intensity of things’) and will feature an active and close interaction between theatre, performance, and music. It will be divided into four parts, each lasting about 10/12 minutes. Between one movement and the next one the public will be asked to move from one to another setting within the estate (secret garden, stairway, chapel and back to the secret garden), thus following the dramaturgical path physically as well as metaphorically. In each location the four performers will have a different set of percussion instruments that have been placed there already. Each performer will be not only a musician, but also the protagonist of a journey that always implicitly contains its end, that is, death.
TR-J: One final question: if you could choose anything, what would be your dream line-up of instruments and/or voices to write for? And where would you like the premiere of this fantasy piece to take place?
CdC: I have been lucky enough to write music for very varied occasions: movies, documentaries, artistic installations, performative acts, musical theatre. Even the locations have been very disparate, sometimes indoors and sometimes outdoors. So in this sense I have already realized a good part of my desires for compositional expression.
My dream would be to have available a large instrumentation that would allow me to write a piece for female voice, mixed chorus and orchestra on the text of a poem from the collection La terra e la morte – ‘Earth and Death’ by the Italian poet and writer Cesare Pavese, which is very close to me. If I could also choose the place and date of the performance I would opt for the Langhe – Pavese’s birthplace – in 2020, the 70th anniversary of his passing away.