From this year and for the following three editions, the Biennale Musica, which ends on Sunday in Venice, has been directed by Lucia Ronchetti: she is the first woman to receive such an assignment. 58-year-old Roman composer much performed especially in Germany, where she is also a teacher, she has chosen to give a thematic imprint to the noble review of new music, one for each year, something unusual at least in the last period.
Mrs. Ronchetti, where does this idea come from?
It is important for me to give a structure to the mandates of the Biennale, intended as an extraordinary opportunity for a composer to report his own writing and listening experience, in remote dialogue with other composers, with those who have been conductors before me or maybe will be later. It is a way to emphasize aspects of creativity otherwise not represented in generalist festivals.
What, then, will the themes be?
The current edition is dedicated to polyphonic vocal writing, which in recent years has had an authentic renaissance. The groups born to sing the music of the Renaissance in the strict sense then began to commission new works: so I decided to put today’s repertoire in dialogue with that of the Venetian sixteenth century. 2022 will be dedicated to instrumental musical theater, that is to the theatricalization of the concert ritual without scenes or costumes, beyond the traditional concept of opera. 2023 will be the year of “micromusic”, a festival of recorded and amplified music: we live in a world of amplified and widespread sound everywhere, it can be obsessive but also become a masterpiece. 2024, on the other hand, will be dedicated to absolute music: many are turning to the multimedia or theatrical aspect, but we want to give more space to those who make music for music.
The Golden Lion goes to Kaja Saariaho, the second woman to receive it in the history of the Biennale. The Finnish was included in his broadcasts dedicated to composers such as Unsuk Chin, Olga Neuwirth and Rebecca Saunders. What was the criterion of the choices?
Radio3 proposed me a cycle on contemporary female composition and I focused on the most recognized, requested and so rewarded figures that I was put on the same level as the most active composers. Saunders was awarded the Siemens Foundation award and is a person who certainly cannot say that he has been discriminated against. Neuwirth is the first woman to have received a theater commission from the Vienna State Opera, Saariaho is one of the most listened to. I have always loved the success of composers like Hans Wener Henze or George Benjamin, because it is important to understand which musicians pierce the wall of the contemporary music ghetto to reach the public. Saariaho receives the Golden Lion not because she is a woman, but because she is an important figure in reference to the chosen theme.
However, there is a recurring female presence, for example Christina Kubisch and Marta Gentilucci from whom the Biennale has commissioned works related to space, San Marco in the first case, the city in the second.
I didn’t choose them because they are women but because they were, of all composers, the only ones who could do this type of work. Kubitsch is a renowned sound artist, I wanted to involve the Marciana Chapel in a renewed spatialization within the basilica: the sound of the recorded choir, broadcast in other cathedrals and re-recorded there, will be presented in dialogue with live Renaissance music. Gentilucci, on the other hand, allows through his processional music to look at the Italian world from outside: after Perugia, she studied in Stuttgart, at Harvard, works in Paris at Ircam and was chosen by France for the Prix de Rome at Villa Medici.
There were also several vocalists from different cultures on the program.
But it was a case dictated by the tight deadlines and the difficulties related to Covid, they were easier artists to contact, waiting to find a vocalist in the manner of Demetrios Stratos. It makes no sense to distinguish between men and women, even for the director of the Biennale: the important thing is that he does well, if it hurts someone else will come later. —
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