Ivan Fedele: Music Project 2011

Unlike our musical “fathers”, who had a positivistic vision of music and history of music, so that every novelty strives for cancelling previous or alternative trends, we have to search for a higher synthesis today. Which in my opinion can be found in a “geological” conception of history. The composer sits on a deeply stratified ground: I can dig into history and draw Sixteenth century’ counterpoint out, which in the contact with contemporary air tarnishes and crumbles, assuming a new sense. This is, in my opinion, the meaning of a healthy relationship with history. No surprise that the growth reaching high of a plant be proportional to soil’s fertility and depth of roots. (Ivan Fedele)

For the fifth edition of its Progetto Musica, Fondazione Banna relies on the collaboration of an exceptional tutor, Ivan Fedele, who presents his new work Morolòja kài Erotikà for soprano voice and string quartet, commissioned by Accademia Filarmonica Romana and premiered in Teatro Argentina in Rome on 5th May. Also the two young composers, Raffaele Grimaldi (Anti-Diotima) and Eric Maestri (Celestografia) write for the same formation (interpreters are soprano Valentina Coladonato and Quartetto Prometeo). The programme of the concert which concludes the workhop includes also the Quartet op. 95 “Serioso” by Ludwig van Beethoven.

Ivan Fedele was born in Lecce in 1953. He studied piano with B. Canino, V. Vitale and I. Deckers, and composition under the guidance of R. Dionisi, A. Corghi and F. Donatoni.

At the same time, he studied philosophy at the University of Milan, with E. Paci, L. Geymonat, G. Giorello, R. Mangione and R. Cantoni. He owns to his father, a mathematician, the passion for mathematics, as it becomes evident in his compositional researches, including the examination and use of the concept of “spatialisation” (Duo en résonance, Ali di Cantor, Donacis Ambra), the formulation of a “library” of creative processes and the definition of a prototype of “granular synthesizer”, like the one used for the realization of the electronic part of Richiamo (for brass, percussions and electronics – IRCAM 1993). His piece Capt-Actions (for string quartet, accordion and electronics) uses for the first time a new system of “capteurs”, which are able to send all data regarding the contours of a musical gesture directly to the computer, which, in turn, interprets this information, on real time, according to the archetypes of modulation set a priori by the composer. Capt-Actions has been premiered at the Arsenale in Metz, in April 2005. This new technology, which has been developed by Thierry Coduys in the “Kitchen” studios of Paris, opens up new compositional perspectives, yet unexplored.

Ivan Fedele’s catalogue, edited by Suvini Zerboni, consists of about eighty titles, to which one should add the opera Antigone, commissioned by the Teatro Comunale of Florence for the inauguration of the Festival “Maggio Fiorentino”, in May 2007. In addition to a large body of chamber music, his catalogue includes various works for orchestra with and without soloists, the most recent pieces being Arco di vento and Flug. He has collaborated with Boulez, Eschenbach, Chung, Saalonen, Muti, Slatkin, Robertson, Kalitze, Wit, Valade and Rophé, among others, and his music has been performed by various orchestras and ensembles, like for instance: BBC, Berlin Radio, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Stuttgart SWR, National de France, National de Lyon, Warsaw Symphony Orchestra, RAI National Symphony Orchestra, Santa Cecilia, Ensemble InterContemporain, London Sinfonietta, Klangforum Wien, etc.

The recording Animus Anima (Cd Stradivarius STR 33629) has been awarded the prize “Choc de la Musique 2003” from “Le Monde de la Musique”, while Maya (Cd L’Empreinte Digitale ED 13198) has received the “Coup de Coeur 2004” from the “Académie Charles Cros”. In 2007 the recording Mixtim (Cd Stradivarius 33717) won the 11th edition of the “Premio del Disco Amadeus” for the category contemporary music.

Ivan Fedele carries also an intense academic activity, which has seen him participating to the activities of important institutions, like Harvard University, University of Barcelona, Sorbonne and IRCAM in Paris, Sibelius Academy of Helsinki, Chopin Academy of Warsaw, Centre Acanthes in Avignon, CNSM in Lyon and CNR of Strasbourg as well as Italian Conservatoires, namely Milan, Bologna and Turin. In 2000 he has been awarded the honour of “Chevalier de l’Ordre des Lettres et des Arts” by the French Ministry of Culture. In 2005 Fedele has been appointed Member of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome. In 2007 the Italian Ministry of Culture entrusted him with the Professorship of Composition for the “Corsi di Perfezionamento in Studi Musicali” at the same Accademia.