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June 8-14, 2025

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ID#: 93

Pace futurista (2025) ; 8:00

by Carlotta Ferrari

Independent Artist

Pace futurista (Futurist Peace, 2025) is a fixed electroacoustic two-channel piece inspired by the aural world of composer and avant-garde creator Luigi Russolo (1885-1947) as a celebration of his 140th anniversary.
This composition has been created with a massive use of concrete elements derived from daily life, and manipulated in various ways to generate abstract, electronic-like sounds and noises as well. It is a hymn to peace: Luigi Russolo was a Futurist and therefore used to celebrate noise, dynamism and eventually war itself, while the only possible answer to contemporary lifestyle and conflicts is peace. Peace, however, intends to be depicted in this composition as a highly dynamic, exciting, powerful, physical, spiritual, overwhelming, and even sexy experience, unlike the common sense of peace which usually connects it to a relaxing, abstract and somewhat otherworldly universe. The composition is therefore full of the mentioned concrete sounds and noises celebrating peace in all everyday activities of everyday humans. Technically, the piece features different elements. A pink noise drone provides a basic texture to the piece; the sound objects moving upon such background are constituted by a series of concrete sounds, both anthropic and natural: traffic jam, chattering crowds, a chainsaw, ambulances, bells, waves hitting rocks, people experiencing sexual arousal, a Chinese restaurant, a train. Other aural elements are provided by factory and hammer sounds, both concrete and transfigured into low frequency drones, as a tribute to Futurism and its enhancement of noisy workplaces. Above all elements but somewhat behind them, a relentless human voice (the composer’s own voice) sings a Gregorian chant from Graduale Romanum, whose text evokes peace on earth. In the end, a dove flies: the hope for a future of peace and love where once was the exaltation of war.

Carlotta Ferrari

Carlotta Ferrari (b. 1975) is an Italian composer and independent researcher. She served as chair of music composition at Hebei Normal University in Shijiazhuang, China, and professor of music composition at the Department of Arts and Music of ESE, Firenze, Italy. She holds degrees from the Conservatories of Milano and Firenze.
Carlotta Ferrari has composed in many genres, developing a personal language that is concerned with the blend of past and present. Her compositions have been performed all over the world. A lecture-recital on her music happened in May 2017 at Harvard University during WIMfest (Women in Music Festival). In 2018, she was commissioned by Harvard University to write a new carol for the 109th edition of the annual Christmas Carol Service. In 2020, a paper on her symphonic poem for organ “Edith Stein” as a modern example of the genre appeared in the Scientific Herald of Tchaikovsky National Music Academy of Ukraine. Carlotta Ferrari won the 2nd award at the 2013 edition of Sisì-Frezza competition for women composers, and the 2nd award at the 2018 edition of Opus Ignotum Choral Composition Competition, supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic. In 2022, she won the shared 1st award at ISCM-Musika Bulegoa Choral Composition Competition (Spain). Ferrari’s music appears on several CD recordings, and has been broadcast on radios such as WPRB Princeton, USA, and the Spanish public radio channel RTVE Radio Clásica. Active as an electroacoustic and multimedia composer as well, Carlotta Ferrari has taken part in festivals such as Vu Symposium (USA 2017), Diffrazioni Multimedia Festival (Italy 2019), Tehran International Electronic Music Festival (Iran 2021), and Vigevano Soundscapes (Italy 2022), where her composition Madrigale del Mezzodì has been broadcast through Eraldo Bocca and Dante Tanzi’s AUDIOR Acusmonium She has lectured a universities such as La Sorbonne Paris, France, Bangor University, and Newcastle University, UK.

carlottaferrari.altervista.org