Wired Resonances

Wired Resonances is a collection of seven works for viola d'amore, each developed in collaboration with Marco Fusi

The viola d'amore's resistance to standardisation makes it a fertile ground for artistic reinvention as each composer approaches the instrument anew, unbound by tradition. Inspired by medieval manuscript miscellanea, Wired Resonances resists linearity and traditional ideas of authorship, inviting listeners to approach each piece as a singular artefact within a broader, resonant whole.

Annie Hui-Hsin Hsieh's Breathless, transforms Fusi's breath into a vast electronic soundscape, the viola d'amore mimicking the sound of the breath through light bow strokes and gentle caressing of the strings. Zeno Baldi's Spikes explores a variety of music-box-like sounds, created by plucking the sympathetic strings, playing on the tuning pegs, and traversing a wealth of microtonal variations. Two collaborative works, Circular Ruin created with Barbara Nerness and encounter 1.4 with Pierre Alexandre Tremblay explore improvisation and interaction in very different ways. The former draws on field recordings captured by Nerness at the Frog Pond Open Space in California, whilst the second sets the viola d'amore against Tremblay's electric bass and laptop. Giovanni Verrando's Fourth Born Unicorn, rounded version and Mary Bellamy's Shivering Mountain, the two purely acoustic works here, explore the tactile and resonant qualities of the instrument, conjuring percussive textures and a world of airy noise respectively. Bara Gisladottir's ORF (en lika axir og onnur pyntingataeki) takes a radically different approach, juxtaposing the instrument with the sounds of grass cutting, thudding hammers, roaring chainsaws and human screams. Starting with an idyllic country scene the sounds become increasingly traumatic, the viola d'amore eventually enveloped by a reverberant electronic shadow.

Much like the manuscripts that inspired it, Wired Resonances is a collective act of preservation, the work of many hands -- composers, performers, and collaborators -- that together have shaped it.