Fondazione Prada presents “Luigi Nono, A floresta é jovem e chaja de vida,” to be held in its Venice venue on Thursday, 21 November 2024, at 6:30 pm. The event is part of the seventh edition of the Luigi Nono Festival, titled “Risonanze erranti” (Wandering resonances), that celebrates the composer’s 100th birthday this year. Admission is free upon reservations at fondazioneprada.org from 12 November.
Dedicated to Luigi Nono’s opera A floresta é jovem e cheja de vida (1966), the event opens with a presentation by philosopher Massimo Cacciari and musicologists Veniero Rizzardi and Laura Zattra, followed by the listening of the multichannel acousmatic version of A floresta curated by sound director Alvise Vidolin and accompanied by the projection of video material edited by Rizzardi.
Composed between 1965 and 1966 and premiered at the International Festival of Contemporary Music of the Venice Biennale in 1966, A floresta é jovem e cheja de vida (The forest is young and full of life) is known as one of the pivotal musical compositions in Luigi Nono’s entire output. It was conceived with a unique approach to music and technology, using new composition techniques, vocal actions, experimental instruments, electroacoustic studio recordings, and live performances.
Realized during the Vietnam War and dedicated to the Vietnam National Liberation Front, the opera is one of Nono’s first overtly political works. The texts in the composition—interpreted in studio and live by actors and singers—come from international anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist political struggle materials, such as letters, interviews, statements, and speeches collected by Italian writer Giovanni Pirelli. The result is an ensemble of voices, including vocal improvisations by New York’s Living Theatre, clarinet and percussion performances, and sounds from speakers that surround the audience, all testifying to Luigi Nono’s experimental approach and his commitment and participation to political and social struggles of those years.
The meticulous project of A floresta é jovem e cheja de vida is not reflected by any conventional notation, neither in the soloists’ parts nor in the score with which the composer coordinates the performance and sound distribution. The work was transcribed into a score only in 1998 after complex research based on archival material, including the composer’s notes and recordings of live performances.
The ongoing collaboration with Fondazione Archivio Luigi Nono is part of a program linked to the music that Fondazione Prada started in 2018 with a series of electronic music events. The program is dedicated to heterogeneous music languages, part of an intellectual investigation which is based on the hybridization of disciplines that Fondazione Prada is carrying on through different activities, aiming to expand knowledge and test new learning tools beyond the visual arts. On Wednesday, 6 November 2024, Fondazione Prada presented, for the fourth time with Threes, a music performance inside the Church of Santa Maria Annunciata in Chiesa Rossa, Milan, which hosts Dan Flavin’s light installation. In this space, American experimental composer Tashi Wada and Julia Holter played Wada’s new album What Is Not Strange?. Another key event in this program is the collaboration with the Riccardo Muti Italian Opera Academy, an education project for young conductors and piano répétiteurs from around the world. In fall 2025, at Fondazione Prada’s Milan premises, the public will be able to attend a series of lessons, rehearsals, and concerts realized by Maestro Riccardo Muti and focused on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Don Giovanni.