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 (Solitude Under Construction).

The sociologist Zygmunt Bauman identified individualism and loneliness as two of the most insidious issues of modernity, stemming from the growing tendency to see the human being as a “project,” and from a consumerist view of human relationships. In Cantieri di Solitudine (Solitude Under Construction), Emanuele Casale attempts to explore specific aspects of this existential condition that Western society is gradually building. His words alternate with the music, addressing themes typical of individualism. Music for Cats, for instance, refers to the choice to seek comfort in animals as a substitute for human connection, while Insert Coins is inspired by video games — increasingly viewed as potential substitutes for human relationships.

The entire composition is permeated by a playful spirit, aiming to exorcise the theme of isolation, or at least to make it less oppressive. In Smiling Trading Center, irony becomes a form of “investment” or antidote to recent social shifts that promote technological dependency and emotional self-sufficiency; here, mainstream and offstream tendencies coexist, generating a mocking confrontation between past and present.