Bang On A C An All-Stars

with special guest IVA BITTOVÀ

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14 october, h. 20.30

PALLADIUM national prèmiere

Program
Conlon Nancarrow: Four Studies (16′)
Julia Wolfe: Big Beautiful Dark & Scary (10′)
Michael Gordon: Light is Calling (8′) - (film di Bill Morrison)
Thurston Moore: Stroking Piece #1 (8′)
Iva Bittová: Elida (50′)

Energetic and sophisticated, virtuosic and direct, poetic and ironic: it is unlikely that you will resist succumbing to the charm of Iva Bittová’s musicality. This Moravian artist has a flexible and heterodox voice and a classical background that sowed the seeds for highly contemporary stimuli such as rock, pop, jazz and bohemian music. The most disparate of inspirations which together form the whole of her highly individual style.
Her encounter with Bang on a Can was bound to happen: the New York ensemble has always had a keen eye for innovative personalities of outstanding “artistry” that pursue alternative routes. What came out of the encounter was Elida, nine tracks that have all the urgency of a love story and the atmospheres of the fairy tale; they open into sonorous clearings, take flight for surreal escapism and finish with the agility of a sigh or a kiss.
In this second concert, too, the evening will open with a few pieces by composers who, in many ways, are unusual: such is Four Studies by Conlon Nancarrow, the American composer who died in 1997 who was skilled in blending early jazz and polyphony with mathematical elegance. It is followed by Big Beautiful Dark & Scary by Julia Wolfe and Light is Calling by Michael Gordon -two of the founders of Bang on a Can- and Stroking Piece # 1 by Thurston Moore, leader of Sonic Youth.
With Elida Italian audiences will be able to acquaint themselves with Bittova who, thanks to the refinement of the chansonnière, the Balkan fury, the Slavic passion and the softness of nursery rhymes, provides a vocal performance which seems to move in every which direction with great artistic imagination. It is a freedom reached thanks also to the presence of Bang on a Can and the understanding she has reached with these musicians who combine improvisation and the regularity of a score with ease.
Yet this is not the only reason that renders the live performances the best way to appreciate Elida: strange as it might seem, Bittová started out her career as an actress, and her stage presence is an integral part of her overall talent. Not least because she has never given up acting; indeed in 2008 she won the Best Actress award at the Syracuse International Film Festival for her role in Little Girl Blue.

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The Czech violinist and singer Iva Bittová describes her work as “my own personal folk music.” In her singularly original and powerful performances, Bittova sings, plays, and acts simultaneously to create pieces that have been described as “… so intimate and personal you can almost feel her breath on your ears.” (CMJ).  Her compositions and improvisations are highly abstract yet deeply rooted in the classical and gypsy music of the tiny Moravian villages where she spent her formative years.  Uninhibited and unaffected, Bittová sings in poetry that is sensual, fervent and evocative.