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On Sunday 9th, the incredible Blow-Up Percussion ensemble kicks off the Nuova Consonanza festival with my piece As the memory of it, for four percussionists.

...Metal sounds suspended in time, resonating in overlapping waves, their vibrations held as if in parentheses. An imaginary carillon, each chime a pinpoint of light in the texture, unfolding like refracted color. Wooden bars with their dry, tactile presence, evoking the act of inscription itself, as though someone were etching marks and words onto the surface. Writing what? Perhaps the half-remembered fragments that bells themselves awaken. For bells do more than sound—they summon. They retrieve what we thought was lost, or they seize our attention with unexpected urgency. Metal, glass, bells, calls, toys, games, structures, memory…

With the words of the poet Charles Wright:

Nothing’s so beautiful as the memory of it
Gathering light as glass does
As glass does when the sundown is on it
and darkness is still a thousand miles away.

See you there!

🗓 November 9 @ 9PM
📍 Roma, Auditorium Parco della Musica

This winter, music is bringing me home. The season begins in Rome with the Nuova Consonanza Festival, where …as the memory of it (2019) opens the program on November 9th. ^{[more info]}

The piece suspends metal sounds in overlapping waves, creating an imaginary carillon where wooden bars evoke the act of inscription itself, as if etching half-remembered fragments onto a surface. It's music about what bells awaken: not just sound, but summons—retrieving what we thought was lost or seizing our attention with unexpected urgency. As the poet Charles Wright wrote: «nothing's so beautiful as the memory of it».

Later in the festival, the legendary Ensemble Modern—one of the most revered groups in contemporary music—will premiere Driften, two studies for chamber ensemble. Having them perform my music again, after many years, feels like both an honour and a challenge. ^{[more info]}

Between performances, I'll step away from the score to explore what "writing" itself means—in a public conversation with writer Mauro Covacic . What is writing? And what does it mean to "write music"? These questions seem worth asking aloud. ^{[more info]}

Early December finds me in conversation with the past. I've written a new piece that sits in dialogue with Mahler's early Quartettsatz—that enigmatic movement which Alfred Schnittke once extended. My work imagines yet another possible continuation, another way the story might have unfolded, an imaginary diaspora from continental Europe towards the Mediterranean, written for the Werther Quartet, on commission by the Accademia Filarmonica Romana. ^{[more info]}

Indeed, an exciting series of performances in my hometown!

Then, on December 14th, something more intimate: violinist Francesca Dego will premiere a solo work inspired by a poem her father wrote. The title Gli occhi di Giulia, draws from Giuliano Dego’s poem, but also from my daughter’s name. It feels right to close this homecoming with music born from such a personal exchange.