Nicola Sani

Is a composer and co-author of multimedia installations. He has won many awards at national and international competitions.
In 1997 he received Premio Erato from the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs; in 1998 ­ Guggenheim Prize for multimedia installation La Torre delle Trilogie. His compositions have been performed by renowned artists and ensembles (e.g. Neue Vokalsolisten Stuttgart, Ensemble Avantgarde-Leipzig, Cambridge New Music Players, Juilliard Ensemble, Alter Ego Ensemble, Orchestra Sinfonica dell1Emilia Romagna, Teatro alla Scala in Milan), presented and commissioned by such prestigious new music festivals as OSynthese1 in Bourges, OArchipel1 in Geneva, OAudiobox1 (rai), ONuova Con-sonanza1 in Rome, OSpaziomusica1 in Cagliari, Video-Art in Locarno, OL'Europe Acousmatique1 Festival in Lyon, OAterforum1 in Bonn and OSonambiente1 in Berlin.
His opera che-Cambiare la prosa del Mondo, to texts by, among others, Che Guevara, was commissioned and premiered by the festival of new music in Havana. His sound installation La Voce di Petrouschka is on permanent display in the International Museum of Dolls in Palermo.
Nicola Sani collaborated several times with the video artist Mario Sasso; their video-composition Footprint was in 1990 awarded the Prix Ars Electronica in Linz; the other co-projects are: Le citta continue/La stanza di Vertov (presented at the OSonambiente1, Berlin 1996), Omaggio
a Giacomo Leopardi (OQuadriennale1, Rome 1999) and La Torre delle Trilogie (shown in the greatest museums and at expo 2000 in Hanover). In 1994 Nicola Sani, Daniele Abbado and Roberto Ando were awarded the special jury mention at the Prix Italia in Turin for Frammenti sull1Apocalisse.
Sani managed the music section of the OArte Elettronica1 Festival in Camerino and was responsible for the Electronic Art section of the ORomaEuropa1 Festival. Currently he is a member of the artistic board of the iuc-Istituzione Universitaria dei Concerti di Roma (University Concerts Institution), artistic consultant of OMusica per Roma1 ­ the company which operates the new Auditorium of the City of Rome, and the artistic director of the OSonora1 Project founded by the Italian Foreign Affairs and Culture Ministries to promote new Italian music abroad.
Since 1990 he has collaborated with rai. He also writes for the magazines Musica/Realta and Diario, and for the daily L1Unita. He also published two books: Informatica: Musica/Industria and Musica Espansa (with Francesco Galante). He held numerous workshops, masterclasses and conferences as a guest lecturer for national and international institutions, and was a jury member in international composers1 competitions.

Selected works: Tendenze for tape (1987), che-Cambiare la prosa del Mondo, opera for voices and tape to texts by Che Guevara and other poets (1989), Footprint for tape, music to video by Mario Sasso (1990), The Waste Land ­ La Terra Desolata, radio opera for voices and tape to texts by T. S. Eliot and N. Sani (1992), Energy for 8-channel tape, music to mulitmedia performance, presented with film images of
M. Antonioni in Italy Pavillon at expo 1992 in Seville; Oltre Oltre, concerto-oratorium for voice, tape and live electronics (with Maria Monti and Luca Spagnoletti; 1993), Le Citta Continue (La stanza di Vertov) for tape, music to multimedia installation, with Mario Sasso (1993­95), The Commitment and the Purpose, opera for speaking voice, strings, percussion, choir, tape and live-electronics; libretto: Luigi Pesta-lozza (1994), Frammenti sull'Apocalisse, opera for speaking voices, soloists, tape and live-electronics, to texts by Roberto Ando (1994­1995), Les Jours de la Lumiere Fragile for digitally-processed sounds (1994), Il Novo Canto for soprano and ensemble to a text by Matteo Maria Boiardo (1994), Non pote mai sfiorire for soprano and tape to texts by Pier Paolo Pasolini (1995), Le corde di un tempo for four guitars (1995), In Stiller ewiger Klarheit for ensemble and live-electronics to texts by Hölderlin (1995), Wassererinnerungen for bass flute and 8-channel digital tape (1996); Dove arrivano le nuvole piu vaste for double bass recorder, live electronics and tape (1996), Un canto dell'Isola for violin (1996), Spargimento, dancing opera for ensemble, 4 percussionists and choir, libretto: Erri De Luca (1997), A time for the evening for clarinet, violin, cello and piano (1997), Not all islands are surrounded by the sea, three-movement cycle for solo instruments (viola, harp and bass clarinet) and 8-channel digital tape (1997), Concetto Spaziale, Attese for piano and tape (1997), Come una specie di infinito for cello and piano (1997), Adagio Moss for percussion, voice and tape (1998), Lo soffia il cielo for two tubas and 8-channel digital tape (1998), Crepuscoli del divenire for orchestra (1998), I binari del tempo for flute and tape (1998), Il Gioco dei Mostri, opera for children (1999), In chiave d1autunno for three bassoons and double bassoon (1999), Windstille for double-bass flute, organ and 8-channel digital tape (1999), Voices beyond the edge for bass voice and 8-channel tape (1999), Terra for percussion and 8-channel tape (2000), Voci Controvento for five voices (2000), Verso un altro occidente for flute, clarinet, viola, piano and percussion (2001), Deshabiler le silence for tape to texts by Andrzej Wirth (2001), Passagen im Gegenlicht for orchesta and children1s choir (2003), Al di la dei miei uragani for accordion and 8-channel digital tape (2003).

I binari del tempo (Tracks of Time)
This composition is based on the air sounds and on the beating sounds, coming from the sound materials produced by means of several kinds of flutes by the Italian flautist Manuel Zurria. The recorded sounds were then processed by means of the digital sound processing and editing techniques at the grm Studios in Paris.
The pulse rhythm of the heartbeat of the flute player, which was captured by chance in the depths of the recorded flute sonorities, flows parallel with the time of the sound material. The flute loses its peculiarity of a monodic instrument and becomes a generator of multiple transfigurations in a universe of sounds expanded through digital technologies, projected in the sound environment, where both complex and simple structures of air sounds prevail. A universe of sounds flows from the flute which is strictly connected to the vocal horizons. Silence takes place in this drama as a perception of the limit, of loneliness, as a tension factor, as an element of contrast and suspension at the same time, from which the relations between several sound dynamics originate.