World Premiere at Festival Aperto

My new string quartet, commissioned by the “I Teatri di Reggio Emilia” Foundation, will be premiered next November 2nd as part of the Festival Aperto. Its title is Cantieri di Solitudine (Construction Sites of Solitude).

The idea was born after meeting some teenagers who seemed sociable, yet in reality lived in isolation.

The sociologist Zygmunt Bauman identified individualism and loneliness as two of the most insidious issues of modernity. I will attempt to explore these themes through a series of movements, each dedicated to a specific aspect of isolation. The piece Insert Coins, for example, is inspired by those video games that become substitutes for human relationships, while Music for Cats evokes the choice to find comfort in animals rather than in people.

The work will be permeated by a playful spirit, intended to exorcise these topics — or at least to dilute them with irony. The piece is meant to culminate in an image of cheerful conflict between past and present: a representation of a society increasingly dominated by technological intelligence, where the need for human connection and support risks being diverted by growing practical — and emotional — self-sufficiency.