Book of Earth and Enchantments

Associazione MusicAdesso/mdi ensemble, Milan, Italy

The idea of Italian composer Simone Movio was to work with some poems written by Andrea Bajani ‒ one of the most important novelists of contemporary Italian literature ‒ started in Bamberg, where they were both resident fellows at the Internationales Künstlerhaus Villa Concordia for the 2016/17 season. They immediately found a common approach to music, literature and arts in general. For 2019 the Association MusicAdesso commissioned Simone Movio to write a piece for the mdi ensemble. This new commission Book of Earth and Enchantments is a 50-minute cycle for voice (soprano), flute, clarinet, violin, viola, cello and piano based on the poems of Andrea Bajani. The poems arise from a list of actions to do during the day written on a blackboard by the author's grandmother: unfolding from there are 58 poems and a postlude that develop in depth these noted down topics. The simple daily issues of practical life are increasingly transcended, reaching states where the words have no value for their everyday meaning, but become pure inner voice vehicles: beings that bring into the world their inner resonance.

January – June 2019
Istituto italiano di cultura, Paris, France

March 2019
Festival L’arsenale, Treviso, Italy

May 2019
Festival Sound of Wander, Milan, Italy

November 2019
Villa Concordia, Bamberg, Germany
 

Further information:
mdiensemble.com