Money is the Devil was composed in 2015, during a particularly challenging time in my life. I was “underemployed,” working very part-time, between jobs, and struggling financially. In addition, my mother had passed away in late 2014 and my father was navigating serious health issues of his own. My family and I weren’t sure if he had pancreatitis or pancreatic cancer (it turned out to be pancreatitis, still not a great situation). The title of the piece references the panic and frustration I experienced during this period of my life; I had initially titled the work “CASH,” a sarcastic response to these struggles.
One of the highlights of this period was working with Luciano Chessa at the Cleveland Museum of Art in January 2015. I performed in his intonarumouri ensemble at a concert at the CMA, and I loved working with these instruments and creating a wide variety of wonderful sounds.
Here is a nice article about the performance, published by Cleveland Classical.
I had also studied the work of Luigi Russolo and was quite familiar with the aesthetics of these instruments and their potential. Russolo invented and created an ensemble of intonarumori in the years before WWI and presented concerts of “noise-music” with these instruments. He wrote a manifesto titled The Art of Noise which advocates for the use of all sounds as musical material, not just those relegated to traditional musical ensembles like the symphony orchestra. This aesthetic rings through loud and clear in the design of the intonarumori, and I fully embraced this sonic palette in my piece.
I captured short videos of each of the instruments during rehearsals for the CMA performance, thinking I might write a piece for this ensemble. Thankfully I managed to find several of these samples, they are short examples of these amazing instruments. I revisited my old files from 2015 and managed to find several videos, which I’ve shared as part of this blog post. These intonarumori sound amazing!
This experience inspired me to write an original work for the full intonarumouri ensemble. I studied each instrument by capturing sample videos of their sounds and construction, and used these to help formulate the sound world for this piece. Luciano’s ensemble will premiere this work on September 28 2023, and I am very grateful to him for his support and willingness to perform my music!
Click HERE for an instagram link about the performance (on September 28) and HERE for the webpage listing for the concert, as part of the TO LISTEN TO festival of contemporary music, presented by the School of Electronic Music of the Conservatory of Music in Turin, Italy.
Last, i wanted to say thank you to the social media team for the TO LISTEN TO music festival for promoting my music and the premiere of Money is the Devil. :)
(First video - Silbiatore; second video - Gogliatore Basso)