Casa Frequencies Design Circle || SMET – School of Electronic Music of the Turin Conservatory
4:30 PM – Introduction by SMET teachers (Carlo Barbagallo, Domenico Sciajno, Stefano Bassanese, Andrea Agostini, Daniele Ghisi, Francesco Bianchi) and Marco Masoero (Politecnico di Torino).
5:00 PM – Screening of the film “SMET: 50 anni di musica Elettronica a Torino” (SMET: 50 years of electronic music in Turin) from the docufilm series “Teknologhia. Conversazioni su espressione artistica e tecnologia” (Teknologhia. Conversations on artistic expression and technology).
Concept and realization by Elaine Carmen Bonsangue, Carlo Barbagallo, and Marco Masoero. A production of the “Collegio di Ingegneria Informatica, del Cinema e Meccatronica del Politecnico di Torino” with the patronage of Polincontri Classica, Department of Humanistic Studies / CIRMA (University of Turin), SMET (School of Electronic Music of the Turin Conservatory), and the support of Control Room (Conservatory of Turin) and StudiumLab (UniTo).
In 1968, Enore Zaffiri began the activity for the Experimental Course of Electronic Music at the Turin Conservatory, the second course recognized by the Ministry after the one entrusted to Pietro Grossi in 1965 in Florence. Since then, a diverse succession of experiences has continued to develop throughout the national territory without interruption. What are the most significant moments of this didactic journey of Italian electronic music, what are the common roots, differences, and perspectives? Moreover, what has changed in the 2000s with the transition to first and second-level academic courses? In this presentation, SMET instructors will briefly review the main stages of the Turin experience, analyzing them in the context of the city’s socio-cultural transformations, the relationship between teaching, technological innovation, and artistic production, and the development of relationships with the university center and other cultural institutions in the city.
Following that, there will be a live performance by the SMET Electroacoustic Ensemble in “Sonic Shuffle” (2010) by Domenico Sciajno for an ensemble of laptops or other portable electronic/digital equipment and “Sonic Shuffle Revisited” (2024) for speakers.
“Sonic Shuffle” (2010): In Sonic Shuffle, performers execute a graphic score found on a specially designed deck of cards. The cards are distributed to each performer before the performance. The performance director controls certain aspects of the score in real-time and adjusts the diffusion of sound moments developed by the performers. Each musician plays in headphones, primarily hearing themselves, and their output is not directly broadcast but goes to the room’s mixer. It will be the performance director who chooses when to open their channel and how much to make it audible.
- Direction: Domenico Sciajno
- Performers: Federico Padrini, Sebastiano Risso, Matteo Pintus, Pietro Degasperi, Alessandro Campagna, Nicolò Oberto, Michele Malvuccio, Luca Lagorio, Davide Sabetta.
“Sonic Shuffle Revisited” (2024): Starting from recordings of rehearsals made in recent months by the electroacoustic ensemble for the preparation of the Sonic Shuffle performance at Frequencies, other SMET students revisit the work, reassembling and remixing it in a version for a multichannel diffusion system.
- Performers: Pietro Barbera, Gabriele Canova, Nicholas Gramaglia, Daniele Palumbo, Bruno Reggiani, Andrea Petruzzo, Francesco Lai, Tommaso Camarotto, Nunzio Malcangi, Gregorio Demaria.
- Coordination: Carlo Barbagallo.
- Technical assistance / tutoring: Marco Marasciuolo.