Bio English - Cecilia Arditto Delsoglio - Page 2

Drup (2018)

for three trombones (Bb, F, F)
based on “Fauna of mirrors” by J. L. Borges and images of Ida Lohman (images are optional)

Original texts by Jorge Luis Borges (in English)

The following fascinating myth was taken from “The book of imaginary beings” by Jorge Luis Borges with Margarita Guerrero. Revised, enlarged, and translated by Norman Thomas di Giovanni. Published by E.P. Dutton & Co., 1970.

“In those days [legendary times of the Yellow Emperor] the world of mirrors and the world of men were not, as they are now, cut off from each other. They were, besides, quite different; neither beings nor colors nor shapes were the same. Both kingdoms, the specular and the human lived in harmony; you could come and go through mirrors. One night the mirror people invaded the earth. Their power was great, but at the end of the bloody warfare the magic arts of the Yellow Emperor prevailed. He repulsed the invaders, imprisoned them in their mirrors, and forced on them the task of repeating, as though in a kind of dream, all the actions of men. He stripped them of their power and of their forms and reduced them to mere slavish reflections. Nonetheless, a day will come when the magic spell will be shaken off. The first to awaken will be the Fish. Deep in the mirror we will perceive a very faint line and the color of this line will be like no other color. Later on, other shapes will begin to stir. Little by little they will differ from us; little by little they will not imitate us. They will break through the barriers of glass or metal and this time will not be defeated. Side by side with these mirror creatures, the creatures of water will join the battle.”

Original images by Ida Lohman

Original stage design by Ida Lohman

Original story board by Ida Lohman

• Video trombone techniques (coming soon)

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Distancia de rescate (2018)

Program notes

for 8 low strings based on the homonymous novel by Samanta Schweblin
commissioned by Innovations in Concert, Montreal

Distancia de rescate is based on the homonymous award-winning novel (“Fever dream” in the English translation) by the Argentine writer Samanta Schweblin. My piece is inspired by the psychological atmosphere of the novel and its fascinating polyphonic structure, which inspired me to write a piece for a big ensemble.
In the novel, the characters are attached to each other by a “psychological string” which expands and stretches depending on emotional content, mostly related to fear. In my composition, the cellos are physically attached to each other by strings, one resonating on another. Extra pieces of strings tied to the instruments bridges and tailpieces connect literally each other occupying the stage.
Distancia de rescate is also a trip inside the deep heart of the string. Its sound world is based on the natural harmonic series, finding unexpected patterns in the upper harmonic series of the string. These bright and fragile sounds are like crystals found in the earthy residual tones of the strings.
• Video

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Distancia de rescate (2018)

for 8 low strings based on the homonymous novel by Samanta Schweblin
commissioned by Innovations in Concert, Montreal
• Program notes
• Video

Download score PDF

Send download link to:

Calder´s circus (2000)

Program notes

for violin, viola and violoncello
selected for Concurso de Composición BAC-Arditti String Quartet 2000

Calder´s circus is inspired on the Circus by Alexander Calder*, the American sculptor inventor of mobile and kinetic sculptures. Calder used to perform himself a vast, miniature circus conformed by a compendium of ingenious string mechanisms and wire artifacts. These artifacts are represented in my piece with different musical motives, which, like mobiles, spin around in loops. Each motive has it own weight, color, trajectory, and speed. The motives, when in interaction with each other, modify their rhythm, form, and behavior in analogy to Calder’s mobiles parts.
Calder used to build his kinetic sculptures with varied materials like stones, wire, wood, and pieces of metal. My spinning motives are made with different sound textures. Both circuses, Calder’s and mine, are a fragile compendium of small pieces to be performed live.

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*Le Cirque de Calder (1961) documentary film by Carlos Vilardebo

About notation

Kagel en andere Argentijnen kunnen lachen met muziek

Jochem Valkenburg
NRC 11 december 2006

Concert: De metafysica van de humor – Muziek uit Argentinië. Werken van Kusnir, Rodrigues Kees, Arditto en Kagel. Gehoord: 10/12 Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ, Amsterdam.

‘Een wolk van vrolijkheid’, zo omschreef de Argentijnse componist Eduardo Kusnir zijn theatrale muziekstuk Brindis (1972-1977). Niet de individuele grap telt, maar het geheel van clowneske, onverwachte en twijfel zaaiende acties. Is het nou een grap, of niet? Zit die schaterlachende toeschouwer in het complot, of vindt hij het écht zo leuk?

Brindis werd uitgevoerd tijdens het eerste concert van het drieluik ‘Latijns-Amerikaanse componisten aan het IJ’. Op de volgende edities (in februari en mei 2007) staan Mexico en Venezuela centraal. Gisteren ging het om de traditie van absurdistische, neo-dadaïstische muziek uit Argentinië. Muziek die haar klanken vaak ontleent aan de (Europese) avant-gardistische concertmuziek, maar dit genre tegelijk ter discussie stelt, of – vaker nog – vrolijk bespot.

Vaandeldrager van deze traditie is de Duits/Argentijnse componist Mauricio Kagel. Hij is in Nederland zó geliefd dat hij op 24 december met het Schönberg Ensemble een dag lang zijn 75ste verjaardag viert in het Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ. Gisteren klonk van hem alvast Acustica (1968/1970), een werk voor ‘experimentele geluidsbronnen’.

Het betekende dat de musici, aangevoerd door slagwerker Arnold Marinissen, een hele verzameling rekwisieten op alle mogelijke manieren als ‘instrument’ gebruikten in een typisch Kageliaanse klankwereld: staalborstel op pick-up, steentjes in emmer water, fluitjes op gasfles. Het ging alleen wat erg lang door; de spanning ebte na een tijdje toch echt weg.

Erg beeldend, goed uitgevoerd door pianist Guy Livingston en ook muzikaal nog effectief was Traficante de bananas (1996) van Damián Rodríguez Kees. Ongedefiniëerde bliepjes die uit luidsprekers klonken, bleken regendruppels die in de piano vielen. Als de pianist op de goede plek in zijn instrument een leeg conservenblik zette, veranderde het gedruppel in een droog ge-‘ploenk’, waarmee de pianist vervolgens in samenspel ging. Omdat het aantal druppels en conservenblikken toenam, werd de muziek ritmisch steeds interessanter.

Componiste Cecilia Arditto, geboren Argentijnse, maar werkzaam in Nederland, was gastprogrammeur van het concert. Van haar klonk een wereldpremière: Alrededor. Hierin wordt een wat voorspelbare act gemaakt van alle zaken die tijdens een ‘normaal’ kamermuziekconcert in de marge te zien en te horen zijn, zoals het stemmen van de instrumenten en de lichamelijke communicatie van de musici.

Doordat er ook steeds meer misgaat – er zijn foute en mislukte inzetten, en ook vallende strijkstokken – straalt het werk tegelijk een soort machteloosheid en vergeefsheid uit en krijgt het toch nog iets van poëzie.

Anatomy of a jar (2020)

Program notes

for female choir (SMA) and glass containers
commissioned by Zembla Music

Anatomy of a jar explores the sound quality of discarded objects, making music with bottles and jars literally rescued from the glass container. These objects refer clearly to a known and familiar world, that through the composition process acquires an abstract and a poetic condition. This piece explores the subtleties of sound, both in the choir and in the objects. These sounds free themselves from their sources, having their own musical value independently of coming from the vocal tradition or the trash can.
Anatomy of a jar makes chamber music with objects converting them into refined musical instruments. Objects are now empowered on stage, and their sounds are written in a music score, acquiring thanks to the music notation “eternal life.” The act of re-appropriation is not related to the idea of nostalgia but to resistance and change.

• Audio • Video instructions
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Out loud #1, #2 and #3 (2013-

Program notes

Out loud is a music piece in the shape of a strainer where most of the sounds have gone away. The main composing was intentionally erased and only the leftovers of a gone piece survive, the unwanted, the declassed sounds.

I say voiceless: I don’t want to write one more piece.

The music vanished and we are facing now its remains: breaths, movements, mistaken notes, eye contact. As if it were junk spread on the beach, this “new piece” invites to draw the shape of a missing party from the waste.

The music is defined for what it is omitted instead of for what it shows, like a post-Cage experiment reloading the forgotten declassed sounds.

I write a silent piece with a lot of notes.

The musicians and the audience are still there, occupying the hall, facing a full nothingness a bit silly. Both audience and musicians are repeating its concert rituals with the hope of recovering some sense.

Tired of being told…

Tired of solfège…

Tired of abstraction

Talk to me in my face!

The musicians are asked to play the shell of the egg, better said the air around the egg and the trombone return the notes from the outside in, blowing comebacks. Hopefully, the audience laughs, filling the air around like a breath of spring.

Life on Mars (2016)

Program notes

for clarinet, accordion and cello
for Roadrunner Trio

Life on Mars is a trip between tonality and micro-tonality. When zooming in from a scale to a single tone and within that single tone to a micro-tone scale, our perception moves progressively deeper and deeper into the sound. Imagine that the perception of tones and micro-tones resembles observing Mars from Earth while getting increasingly closer to its surface; after a while, our eyes can’t embrace the whole planet anymore, only the small details.

The clarinet uses extremely micro-tonality: scales of 32nd of tone obtained by the usage of specific ventilation holes. The aim is not to turn the audience into listening machines but to create a context that opens perception.

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Related works:

El libro de los gestos / The book of gestures (2007 revised 2008)

Program notes

for violin, cello, piano, percussion and lamps
commissioned by Ensemble Musas, Santa Fe

There are four people in a room making music. Each one has a lamp. They play their musical instruments, and they also play the lights, on and off, creating with this action different atmospheres. The staging of the piece is constantly changing, in real-time, by means of the lights.
The book of gestures proposes a counterpoint of different layers: the rhythm of the music, the rhythm of the lights, the rhythm of the room…
There are spaces to be seen, spaces to be heard, spaces to be imagined. Some of the music is played in the dark, in a room full of presences.

• Video
• Notes for performance (English)
• Analysis (Español)