ENSEMBLE DISSONANZEN

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Photo by Pietro Previti

ENSEMBLE DISSONANZEN is a chamber ensemble formed in Naples in 1993 as part of the concert series organized by  Associazione Dissonanzen. Its primary goal is to spread music of the 20th century, a repertoire which had been, until then, chronically absent from the concert halls in Naples. Starting in 2002, without stopping its activity on the local scene, the Ensemble has progressively shaped itself as a means of realization and export of new projects.

For each event, a number of musicians, from Naples or elsewhere, joins the ensemble, as well as special guests such as Michel Godard, the Markus Stockhausen/Tara Bouman Duo, Jim Pugliese, Cristina Zavalloni, Stefano Scodanibbio, Alvin Curran, Marc Ribot, Adam Rudolph and Evan Parker.

Dissonanzen has performed works by Berio, Bussotti, Cage, Carter, Castiglioni, Crumb, Dallapiccola, De Falla, Henze, Ives, Kagel, Maderna, Pennisi, Petrassi, Rzewski, Scelsi, Schönberg, Stockhausen, and Walton; has been hosted by leading Italian festivals and concert societies, like Time Zones Bari, Ravello International Festival, Ravenna Festival, Traiettorie Festival Parma (Teatro Farnese), Associazione Scarlatti in Naples, GOG in Genova.

Multimedia specialists, Dissonanzen realized projects of movie postscoring: Man Ray Movies (from music by Satie), Das Kabinet des Doktor Caligari and Assunta Spina (presented at Anthology Film Archives, New York and Italian Film Festival of Annecy, France), as well as the original musical project entitled Musica Porosa (in collaboration the Markus Stockhausen/Tara Bouman duo, with screenings of volcano-theme photos by Antonio Biasiucci).

Following performances of the Neapolitan silent film Assunta Spina and the Scelsi Morning project in collaboration with Marc Ribot (at Tonic, NYC, February 2006), Dissonanzen was invited to New York for a concert-tribute to Lucio Fontana (as part of the Venice/New York exhibition, October 2006) at the Guggenheim Museum. Dissonanzen made its debut at the Salzburg Festival (Austria) in August 2007 with Marc Ribot and the project Scelsi Morning , getting to a great critical acclaim.

ENSEMBLE DISSONANZEN celebrated is 20th birthday with the release of  a 5 cd box of unpublished recording (Die Schachtel, 2014) and with a memorable concert/party at Museo Hermann Nitsche in Naples in January 2014.

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