ongoing…
Andrew Infanti seeks in the past, as well as the present, all forms of progressive musical technique and expression, even if the result remains a sketch (“Entwurf”)…
His upcoming musical project is presented below; it aspires to a multi-faceted collaboration, not only between artists, but also between artists and other professions.
Bufala orbata
Lehrstück for solo vocalist, keyboard, five to seven collaborators (2-3 solo instruments, 3-4 solo singers or choral parts), live electronics, pre-recorded and live poems (human and animal), and video.
details
The piece’s texts (collected and arranged by Didier Gil) recount two ancient bloody sacrifices and offer a didactic, collective investigation of the queries they still bring to a contemporary audience. The first, a famous Greek legend: the sacrifice of Iphigenia by her father Agamemnon during the Trojan War. The second: the almost ignored sacrifice of a young buffalo calf whose mother is grieving deeply, as recounted in the 1st Century B.C.E. poem De rerum natura by Latin poet Lucretius.
The work will take the form of a small-scale scenic cantata — the solo vocalist’s musical interventions launch an electronic music patch invented by Juliana Snapper and Miller Puckette called “Double Voiced”. This device uses the voice to control and interact with prerecorded sequences — texts spoken by Pier Paolo Pasolini, chanted poems, animal sounds culled during a period of research with dairy farmers and their cows; notably the bufala species which gives its name to the famous mozzarella… and its title to the project: literally (from Latin/Italian) Grieving Bufala.
Video projection will present translations of the Latin and Italian texts (into venue languages such as German, French, or English, etc.) in real time.
The piece aims to include local participants on a tour and this way form communities. The creative process, inspired by German experimental theatre works called Lehrstücke (Didactic pieces), hopes to engage professional and amateur, musicians and music lovers, in a common practice, debate crucial issues like bloody sacrifice of living beings, whatever its form, and its relation to religious belief (ancient and contemporary). Ultimately it hopes to forge a work of art by/for humans and (other) animals, whose “world” (symbolic order) is more problematic than ever.
The electronic, instrumental and choral music will be written by Andrew Infanti. The work’s modular structure will allow it to be performed in multiple configurations, enabling site-specific adjustments for the musical team, the electronic patches, the translation languages, and the local bovine community.
participate
May the Italian region of Campania support this project!
If you or a group you represent are interested in participating in the realization of Bufala orbata project for your community, please feel free to contact the artists for more information:
• ✉ Andrew Infanti
• ✉ Juliana Snapper