The paleo-futuristic music of Open Sound arrives in Hong Kong on 12 and 13 December, chosen by the Asia Cultural Co-operation Forum (ACCF). The Forum is one of the most important cultural events in the region of reference. It promotes and encourages connections and exchanges between cultures, states and international projects. The Forum has asked the Matera Basilicata 2019 Foundation in order to host a music production in Hong Kong representing Matera as the European Capital of Culture 2019 and, more broadly, the European continent.
The artistic curators of the ACCF Forum have thus chosen "Terama (Byzantine Puzzle)", one of the new tracks created by Open Sound, a project of Matera European Capital of Culture 2019 co-produced by Multietnica and Matera Basilicata Foundation 2019. The song will be presented on 12 and 13 December at the Rosewood Hotel, home of the Forum, and at the Hong Kong Museum of Art and will be performed by the young producer of electronic music go-Dratta together with Alberico Larato playing the zampogna, a traditional instrument of Lucan culture (and Southern Italy), built using wood and goatskin. Composed by go-Dratta sampling the sounds of the zampogna and reworked for live performance through various test sessions with Larato, it is a track with enveloping sonorities evoking the past but projecting definitely into the future.
The ACCF, organized every two years by the Hong Kong Government's Office of Home Affairs, was established in 2003 to promote cultural cooperation in Asia, encourage partnership between governments but also to facilitate wider participation in the arts and strengthen Hong Kong’s profile as a cultural center of Asia. Alberico Larato and go-Dratta will participate in the Forum together with other groups, accompanied by two members of the curatorial team that built the collective work Open Sound, namely Nico Ferri (project coordinator) and Dino Lupelli (artistic director). The team also includes Nicola Scaldaferri, university professor and ethnomusicologist; Yuval Avital, international composer, multimedia artist and guitarist, as well as guest artistic director of Open Sound, Manuel Tataranno, front man of Krikka Reggae and founder of the Metaponto Beach Festival, and Alioscia Bisceglia, Open Sound ambassador.
Partner of Open Sound Festival is Levi’s®, a global brand that has always been at the center of culture and traditionally close to the world of music. Open Sound Festival is a project of Matera European Capital of Culture 2019 co-produced by Multietnica and Matera-Basilicata Foundation 2019, in collaboration with MUSIC INNOVATION HUB Spa - Social Enterprise (Milan, IT), EUROPAVOX (Clermont Ferrand, FR), KRIKKA (Bernalda, IT), UNIVERSITY OF MILAN (Milan, IT). Realized with the support of the ethical fund of Banca di Credito Cooperativo della Basilicata (Cooperative Credit Bank of Basilicata).
The project aims to rediscover the archaic sounds of Basilicata so as not to lose its memory and has developed a new format that promotes the encounter between the sounds of ancient rites in the Lucan area and electronic music, finally generating new musical productions that were first recorded and then performed live. The part of studio work saw the musicians meet in these new worlds for a week of full immersion in the Red Bull Music Studio in Matera, thanks to Red Bull, partner of the festival.
The tracks were then included in the Open Sound compilation from which the ACCF selected the track by go-Dratta and Larato: this, like other songs created specifically for Open Sound, was produced by drawing on an open library containing samples of instruments of ancient culture of Basilicata with which producers and DJs, guests of the festival held in Matera, have composed unreleased songs.
The sounds contained in the library are choral and collective, often generated with self-built instruments (such as zampogna, cowbells, cupa cupa, arbëreshë choirs, percussion) and were collected during two artistic sojourns in Basilicata of the composer and multimedia artist Yuval Avital with the curatorship of Professor Nicola Scaldaferri, Ethnomusicologist of the University of Milan.
At its first edition from 29 August to 1 September 2019 in the European Capital of Culture 2019, OSF presented a program of exhibitions and contemporary installations represented by musicians and producers of international profile.
To close the festival, an immersive work for hundreds of performers, workshops, open rehearsals, sound performances that saw the encounter between the ancestral universe of ancient instruments of Basilicata and contemporary music. The work, by Yuval Avital, is titled #Urla, a sound work in motion, a human river characterized by the execution of an unrepeatable "geographical musical score", which has unfolded along the streets of the Sassi of Matera proposing some of the most radical sound traditions of Basilicata. The work is the final outcome of a research process conducted on the territory by Avital in close collaboration with Professor Nicola Scaldaferri.