CFP: Utopian Listening: the Late Electroacoustic Music of Luigi Nono: Technologies, Aesthetics, Histories, Futures, Tufts Univ., Medford, Mar 2016

Utopian Listening: the Late Electroacoustic Music of Luigi Nono: Technologies, Aesthetics, Histories, Futures
An International Conference/Workshop, co-sponsored by Tufts and Harvard Universities
CFP Deadline: August 15, 2015
Abstract of not more than 350 words plus 50-word biography to Joseph Auner (joseph.auner -at- tufts.edu) and Anne Shreffler (acshreff -at- fas.harvard.edu)

Conference dates: March 23-26, 2016
Venue: Tufts University, Medford, MA

Utopian Listening will bring together scholars, sound engineers, composers, and musicians to engage with the practical and aesthetic challenges of performing Luigi Nono's works with live electronics, considered within their historical and political contexts as well as their contemporary ramifications and potentialities. This interdisciplinary conference/workshop is open to participants with long involvement with this remarkable body of works as well as those coming to Nono's music for the first time. The format will combine roundtables, paper sessions, four concerts, and workshops for technicians, musicians, and scholars focusing on specific issues raised by the works to be performed in the concerts.

We invite papers exploring musical, technical, aesthetic, analytical, and political aspects of Nono's late electroacoustic works. Scheduled pieces to be performed include: 'Con Luigi Dallapiccola' for percussion and ring modulator (1979), 'Das atmende Klarsein' for chorus, bass flute, live electronics, and tape (1981), 'A Pierre, dell'azzurro silenzio, inquietum' for contrabass flute, contrabass clarinet, and live electronics (1985), 'Post-Prae-Ludium per Donau' for tuba and live electronics (1987), 'La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura' for solo violin and 8 tapes (1988-89). The concerts will also include some of Nono's fixed media works such as 'La fabbrica illuminata' (1964) for soprano and four channel tape.

Paper sessions and roundtables will consider such topics as:
Nono's creative process
Performance practice of Nono's late works
Electronics and the idea of the work
Sound and the sonic articulation of space and place in Nono's music
The role of the score and the creation of performing editions
Questions of historical performance practice in electroacoustic music
Analytical issues in Nono's late music

Planning committee: Joseph Auner (Tufts University), Angela Ida De Benedictis (Paul Sacher Stiftung, Archivio Luigi Nono), Friedemann Sallis (University of Calgary), and Anne Shreffler (Harvard University), who will be co-editing a book growing out of the event.