Luciano Chessa
Encyclopedia
Luciano Chessa is a composer, performer, and musicologist.
As a composer, conductor, pianist, and musical saw / Vietnamese dan bau soloists, Luciano Chessa has been active in Europe, the U.S., and Australia. Among his compositions is a piano and percussion duet after Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Petrolio, written for Sarah Cahill
and Chris Froh and presented in 2004 at the American Academy in Rome
, Il pedone dell’aria for orchestra and double children choir, premiered in 2006 at the Auditorium of Turin's Lingotto and subsequently released on DVD, and two works in collaboration with artist Terry Berlier: Louganis for piano and TV/VCR combo (recently performed at the Monday Evening Concerts) and Inkless Imagination IV for viola, mini-bass musical saw, turntables, piano, percussion, FM radios, blimp and video projection.
Recent premieres include a large orchestral work commissioned by the Orchestra Filarmonica di Torino, Italy and titled Ragazzi incoscienti scarabocchiano sulla porta di un negozio fallito an.1902, Movements, a multimedia work for 16mm film, dan bau and amplified film projectors produced in collaboration with filmmaker Rick Bahto, Come un’infanzia, a guitar + string quartet piece for the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, and A Heavenly Act, an opera commissioned by SFMOMA
with a libretto by Gertrude Stein
and video by Kalup Linzy
. A Heavenly Act premiered on August 19, 2011, at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
in San Francisco, in a staged production by the Ensemble Parallèle, conducted by Nicole Paiement and featuring Linzy.
Chessa has been performing futurist sound poetry for well over 10 years. His reading of Italian poetry to accompany a performance of the Grammy Award Nominated New Century Chamber Orchestra
in San Francisco's Herbst Theatre
in 2000 was granted with excellent reviews in the San Francisco press, and in 2001 he has given the modern premiere of Francesco Cangiullo’s explosive Futurist sound poems "Piedigrotta" and "Serata in onore di Yvonne" to critical acclaim.
As a musicologist, his areas of research competence include twentieth-century, experimental, and late fourteenth-century music (Ars Subtilior
). His research on Italian Futurism, which he has presented and published internationally, has shown for the first time the occult relationship between Luigi Russolo
’s intonarumori and Leonardo da Vinci
’s mechanical noisemakers. He is currently working on Luigi Russolo Futurist. Noise, Visual Arts, and the Occult, the first monograph ever to be dedicated to Russolo and his Art of Noise, forthcoming in February 2012 by the University of California Press
.
Chessa’s Futurist expertise has resulted in an invitation by RoseLee Goldberg
, General Director of the New York-based Biennale of the Arts PERFORMA to direct the first reconstruction project of Russolo’s earliest intonarumori orchestra, and to curate concerts of music specifically commissioned for this orchestra. The new intonarumori ensemble has been unveiled in October 2009 at San Francisco’s YBCA’s Novellus Theater and then presented in NYC’s Town Hall in November for PERFORMA 09—both events being co-produced by PERFORMA and SFMOMA, and featuring Minna Choi's Magik*Magik Orchestra. This production featured an impressive array of world premieres written by such composers and ensembles as Blixa Bargeld
, John Butcher
, Tony Conrad
, James Fei
, Ellen Fullman
, Ghostdigital with Finboggi Petusson and Caspar Electronics, Nick Hallett, Carla Kihlstedt
+ Matthias Bossi, Ulrich Krieger
, Joan La Barbara
, Pauline Oliveros
, Pablo Ortiz, Mike Patton
, Anat Pick, Elliott Sharp
, Jennifer Walshe
, Theresa Wong, Text of Light. The production, also featuring Chessa’s L’acoustique ivresse, for bassvoice and intonarumori ensemble and the modern premiere of Russolo's Risveglio di una città in a new diplomatic edition by Chessa, was hailed by the New York Times among the best events in the arts of 2009. In September 2010 Chessa presented the intonarumori in the first Italian appearance: a concert at the MART in Rovereto, Italy, as part of the Festival Transart, which featured performances by Nicholas Isherwood
and included Sylvano Bussotti's "VARIAZIONE RUSSOLO-Slancio d'angoli", and two new commissioned pieces by Margareth Kammerer and Teho Teardo
. In March 2011 Chessa conducted the Orchestra of Futurist Noise Intoners in sold out concert by Berliner Festspiele
Maerzmusik Festival, which included "Gramophone Saraswati," a new piece by Amelia Cuni and Werner Durand. The Orchestra of Futurist Noise Intoners is currently touring internationally.
He has been interviewed by the CBS
(KPIX/KBHK) television channel as an expert on Italian 1990s hip-hop and by the BBC
as Luigi Russolo’s foremost scholar. He has been featured in Artforum
, Art in America
, in the Italian issue of Marie Claire
and in the September 2010 Issue of Vogue Italia
, and appears in Peter Esmonde’s documentary on Ellen Fullman, 5 Variations on a Long String (2010). Chessa teaches at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music
, serves in the Advisory Board of TACET, the international research publication dedicated to Experimental Music of the University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne, and collaborates with SF’s Italian Cultural Institute. His music is published by RAI TRADE, the Italian National Broadcast Channels’ music publishing company.
, and a Ph.D. in Musicology and Music Criticism from the University of California at Davis. He taught and lectured at various prestigious institutions including St. John's College
of Oxford, UK, Columbia University
, Sydney’s and Melbourne’s Conservatories and Universities, the Conservatory of Music in Bologna, UC Davis, UC Berkeley, Stanford University, and EMPAC in the campus of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
.
As a composer, conductor, pianist, and musical saw / Vietnamese dan bau soloists, Luciano Chessa has been active in Europe, the U.S., and Australia. Among his compositions is a piano and percussion duet after Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Petrolio, written for Sarah Cahill
Sarah Cahill (pianist)
Sarah Cahill , an American pianist born in Washington, D.C., is a long-time resident of Berkeley, California. She is best known for performances of new works, many of them written for her...
and Chris Froh and presented in 2004 at the American Academy in Rome
American Academy in Rome
The American Academy in Rome is a research and arts institution located on the Gianicolo in Rome.- History :In 1893, a group of American architects, painters and sculptors met regularly while planning the fine arts section of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition...
, Il pedone dell’aria for orchestra and double children choir, premiered in 2006 at the Auditorium of Turin's Lingotto and subsequently released on DVD, and two works in collaboration with artist Terry Berlier: Louganis for piano and TV/VCR combo (recently performed at the Monday Evening Concerts) and Inkless Imagination IV for viola, mini-bass musical saw, turntables, piano, percussion, FM radios, blimp and video projection.
Recent premieres include a large orchestral work commissioned by the Orchestra Filarmonica di Torino, Italy and titled Ragazzi incoscienti scarabocchiano sulla porta di un negozio fallito an.1902, Movements, a multimedia work for 16mm film, dan bau and amplified film projectors produced in collaboration with filmmaker Rick Bahto, Come un’infanzia, a guitar + string quartet piece for the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, and A Heavenly Act, an opera commissioned by SFMOMA
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a modern art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th century art...
with a libretto by Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein was an American writer, poet and art collector who spent most of her life in France.-Early life:...
and video by Kalup Linzy
Kalup Linzy
Kalup Linzy is an American video and performance artist who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.-Early Life and Work:Linzy grew up in a small rural community in Florida called Stuckey. He had a large, close-knit extended family, and was raised by his Aunt and Grandmother...
. A Heavenly Act premiered on August 19, 2011, at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts is a multi-disiplinary contemporary arts center in San Francisco, California, United States. Located in Yerba Buena Gardens, YBCA features visual art, performance, and film/video that celebrates local, national, and international artists and the Bay Area's diverse...
in San Francisco, in a staged production by the Ensemble Parallèle, conducted by Nicole Paiement and featuring Linzy.
Chessa has been performing futurist sound poetry for well over 10 years. His reading of Italian poetry to accompany a performance of the Grammy Award Nominated New Century Chamber Orchestra
New Century Chamber Orchestra
The New Century Chamber Orchestra was founded in 1992 by cellist, Miriam Perkoff, and violist, Wieslaw Pogorzelski. The goal of the founders was to present classical music in a fresh and unique way in the San Francisco Bay Area. The music director chooses the programs and guides the artistic...
in San Francisco's Herbst Theatre
Herbst Theatre
The Herbst Theatre is an auditorium in the War Memorial and Performing Arts Center in Civic Center in San Francisco, United States. The 928-seat hall hosts programs as diverse as City Arts & Lectures, SF Jazz, and San Francisco Performances....
in 2000 was granted with excellent reviews in the San Francisco press, and in 2001 he has given the modern premiere of Francesco Cangiullo’s explosive Futurist sound poems "Piedigrotta" and "Serata in onore di Yvonne" to critical acclaim.
As a musicologist, his areas of research competence include twentieth-century, experimental, and late fourteenth-century music (Ars Subtilior
Ars subtilior
Ars subtilior is a musical style characterized by rhythmic and notational complexity, centered around Paris, Avignon in southern France, also in northern Spain at the end of the fourteenth century. The style also is found in the French Cypriot repertory...
). His research on Italian Futurism, which he has presented and published internationally, has shown for the first time the occult relationship between Luigi Russolo
Luigi Russolo
Luigi Russolo was an Italian Futurist painter and composer, and the author of the manifesto The Art of Noises . He is often regarded as one of the first noise music experimental composers with his performances of "noise concerts" in 1913-14 and then again after World War I, notably in Paris in 1921...
’s intonarumori and Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...
’s mechanical noisemakers. He is currently working on Luigi Russolo Futurist. Noise, Visual Arts, and the Occult, the first monograph ever to be dedicated to Russolo and his Art of Noise, forthcoming in February 2012 by the University of California Press
University of California Press
University of California Press, also known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish books and papers for the faculty of the University of California, established 25 years earlier in 1868...
.
Chessa’s Futurist expertise has resulted in an invitation by RoseLee Goldberg
Roselee Goldberg
RoseLee Goldberg is an American-based art historian, author, critic and curator. She wrote a study of performance art, Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present...
, General Director of the New York-based Biennale of the Arts PERFORMA to direct the first reconstruction project of Russolo’s earliest intonarumori orchestra, and to curate concerts of music specifically commissioned for this orchestra. The new intonarumori ensemble has been unveiled in October 2009 at San Francisco’s YBCA’s Novellus Theater and then presented in NYC’s Town Hall in November for PERFORMA 09—both events being co-produced by PERFORMA and SFMOMA, and featuring Minna Choi's Magik*Magik Orchestra. This production featured an impressive array of world premieres written by such composers and ensembles as Blixa Bargeld
Blixa Bargeld
Blixa Bargeld is a composer, author, actor, singer, musician, performer and lecturer in a number of artistic fields...
, John Butcher
John Butcher (musician)
John Butcher is an English tenor and soprano saxophone player who has lived in London since the late 1970s. He began playing at the University of Surrey where he was studying physics...
, Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad is an American avant-garde video artist, experimental filmmaker, musician/composer, sound artist, teacher and writer...
, James Fei
James Fei
James Cheng Ting Fei is a composer and performer working in the fields of contemporary classical music and electronic music. He lives in the San Francisco Bay area...
, Ellen Fullman
Ellen Fullman
Ellen Fullman is a composer, instrument builder, and performer. She was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and is currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area...
, Ghostdigital with Finboggi Petusson and Caspar Electronics, Nick Hallett, Carla Kihlstedt
Carla Kihlstedt
Carla Kihlstedt is an American violinist, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist from Lancaster, Pennsylvania currently living in Oakland, California....
+ Matthias Bossi, Ulrich Krieger
Ulrich Krieger
Ulrich Krieger is a German contemporary composer, performer, improviser and experimental rock musician based in Los Angeles....
, Joan La Barbara
Joan La Barbara
Joan La Barbara is an American vocalist and composer associated with contemporary music. She is a former student of Helen Boatwright...
, Pauline Oliveros
Pauline Oliveros
Pauline Oliveros is an American accordionist and composer who is a central figure in the development of post-war electronic art music....
, Pablo Ortiz, Mike Patton
Mike Patton
Michael Allan "Mike" Patton is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and actor, best known as the lead singer of the metal/experimental rock band Faith No More. He has also sung for Mr...
, Anat Pick, Elliott Sharp
Elliott Sharp
Elliott Sharp is an American multi-instrumentalist, composer, and performer.A central figure in the avant-garde and experimental music scene in New York City since the late 1970s, Sharp has released over eighty-five recordings ranging from blues, jazz, and orchestral music to noise, no wave rock,...
, Jennifer Walshe
Jennifer Walshe
Jennifer Walshe is an Irish composer, vocalist and artist.-Biography:Jennifer Walshe was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1974. She studied composition with John Maxwell Geddes at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, Kevin Volans in Dublin and graduated from Northwestern University with a...
, Theresa Wong, Text of Light. The production, also featuring Chessa’s L’acoustique ivresse, for bassvoice and intonarumori ensemble and the modern premiere of Russolo's Risveglio di una città in a new diplomatic edition by Chessa, was hailed by the New York Times among the best events in the arts of 2009. In September 2010 Chessa presented the intonarumori in the first Italian appearance: a concert at the MART in Rovereto, Italy, as part of the Festival Transart, which featured performances by Nicholas Isherwood
Nicholas Isherwood
Nicholas Isherwood is US-born bass singer, who specialises in contemporary and baroque music. Notable roles include "Lucifer" in the world premieres of Stockhausen’s Montag, Dienstag, and Freitag from Licht at La Scala and the Leipzig Opera, and in Donnerstag aus Licht at Covent Garden.Isherwood...
and included Sylvano Bussotti's "VARIAZIONE RUSSOLO-Slancio d'angoli", and two new commissioned pieces by Margareth Kammerer and Teho Teardo
Teho Teardo
Teho Teardo is an Italian musician and composer.He is a founding member of the rock band Meathead. In 1990s he collaborated with Mick Harris, Jim Coleman or Lydia Lunch. With Scott McCloud he started a new project called Operator. Together they released an album titled Welcome To The Wonderful...
. In March 2011 Chessa conducted the Orchestra of Futurist Noise Intoners in sold out concert by Berliner Festspiele
Berliner Festspiele
The Berliner Festspiele arts center brings together a variety of arts and culture events under one roof each year in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in West Berlin in 1951. Throughout the year, festivals, program series, and individual events enrich the cultural scene of the city...
Maerzmusik Festival, which included "Gramophone Saraswati," a new piece by Amelia Cuni and Werner Durand. The Orchestra of Futurist Noise Intoners is currently touring internationally.
He has been interviewed by the CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
(KPIX/KBHK) television channel as an expert on Italian 1990s hip-hop and by the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
as Luigi Russolo’s foremost scholar. He has been featured in Artforum
Artforum
Artforum is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art.-Publication:The magazine is published ten times a year, September through May, along with an annual summer issue...
, Art in America
Art in America
Art in America is an illustrated monthly, international magazine concentrating on the contemporary art world, including profiles of artists and genres, updates about art movements, show reviews and event schedules. It is designed for collectors, artists, dealers, art professionals and other...
, in the Italian issue of Marie Claire
Marie Claire
Marie Claire is a monthly women's magazine first published in France but also distributed in other countries with editions specific to them and in their languages. While each country shares its own special voice with its audience, the United States edition focuses on women around the world and...
and in the September 2010 Issue of Vogue Italia
Vogue Italia
Vogue Italia is the Italian edition of Vogue magazine. Owned by Condé Nast International, it is the least commercial of all editions of Vogue magazine and has been called the top fashion magazine in the world....
, and appears in Peter Esmonde’s documentary on Ellen Fullman, 5 Variations on a Long String (2010). Chessa teaches at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music
San Francisco Conservatory of Music
San Francisco Conservatory of Music, formerly the California Conservatory of Music, founded in 1917, is a music school, with an enrollment of about 400 students. It was launched by Ada Clement and Lillian Hodgehead in the remodeled home of Lillian's parents on Sacramento Street. It was called the...
, serves in the Advisory Board of TACET, the international research publication dedicated to Experimental Music of the University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne, and collaborates with SF’s Italian Cultural Institute. His music is published by RAI TRADE, the Italian National Broadcast Channels’ music publishing company.
Education
He holds a D.M.A. in Piano performance and a M.A. in Composition from the G.B. Martini Conservatory of Music in Bologna, Italy, a M.A. magna cum laude in History of Medieval Music from the University of BolognaUniversity of Bologna
The Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna is the oldest continually operating university in the world, the word 'universitas' being first used by this institution at its foundation. The true date of its founding is uncertain, but believed by most accounts to have been 1088...
, and a Ph.D. in Musicology and Music Criticism from the University of California at Davis. He taught and lectured at various prestigious institutions including St. John's College
St John's College, Oxford
__FORCETOC__St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford, one of the larger Oxford colleges with approximately 390 undergraduates, 200 postgraduates and over 100 academic staff. It was founded by Sir Thomas White, a merchant, in 1555, whose heart is buried in the chapel of...
of Oxford, UK, Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, Sydney’s and Melbourne’s Conservatories and Universities, the Conservatory of Music in Bologna, UC Davis, UC Berkeley, Stanford University, and EMPAC in the campus of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Stephen Van Rensselaer established the Rensselaer School on November 5, 1824 with a letter to the Rev. Dr. Samuel Blatchford, in which van Rensselaer asked Blatchford to serve as the first president. Within the letter he set down several orders of business. He appointed Amos Eaton as the school's...
.