Nostalgia for the Future Utopia
2024
with Marco Fusi and Bobby McElver
Electronics and spatialization in Luigi Nono’s La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura (1988–89)
Qualcomm Institute IDEAS series, Calit2 Theatre, UC San Diego, La Jolla, February 22, 2024
Wavefield synthesis array by Bobby McElver
Luigi Nono’s La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura (1988–89) is an improvisatory work for violin and eight tapes. The electronics performer spatializes and recombines the tapes, which hold the playing and musings of violinist Gidon Kremer alongside incidental, environmental and concrete sound, into a multichannel work of 35 to 60 minutes, while the violinist improvises in response.
Performed on February 22, 2024 by Michelle Helene Mackenzie (electronics, spatialization) and Marco Fusi (violin, viola) across 256 loudspeakers of Bobby McElver’s wave field synthesis array. Commissioned by the Qualcomm Institute IDEAS series.
Marco Fusi is a violinist/violist, a researcher in music performance, and a passionate advocate for the music of our time. Among many collaborations with emerging and established composers, he has premiered works by Jessie Marino, Tim McCormack, Yu Kuwabara, Evan Johnson and Kristine Tjøgersen, among others. He has performed with Pierre Boulez, Elena Schwarz, Lorin Maazel, Susanna Mälkki and Alan Gilbert, and frequently plays with leading contemporary ensembles including Klangforum Wien, MusikFabrik, Meitar Ensemble, Mivos Quartet and Ensemble Linea. He has recorded several solo albums, published by Kairos, Stradivarius, Col Legno, Da Vinci, Geiger Grammofon and New Focus Recordings. Marco also plays viola d’amore, commissioning new pieces and collaborating with composers to expand the instrument’s repertoire. After his Masters in Violin and Composition at the Conservatory of Milan, he received his PhD from the University of Antwerp / docARTES with a dissertation on the performance practice of Giacinto Scelsi’s works for string instruments. He is Assistant Professor of Artistic Research at HEMU Lausanne and Associate Researcher at the Orpheus Instituut, Ghent.
Bobby McElver is a Southern California-based sound designer, composer and spatial audio artist working with theatre, dance and installation art. A member of The Wooster Group from 2011 to 2016, he toured internationally with the company. He is Associate Chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance at UC San Diego. As an artist-engineer, his research focuses on developing new spatial audio technology — specifically Wave Field Synthesis and “sound holograms” — and applying it in artistic work. In 2018 he fabricated a Wave Field Synthesis array of 372 discrete loudspeakers, based on research at EMPAC, where he was an artist in residence; it is one of the most extensive WFS arrays in the world. In 2022 he built an additional 256-channel array for research and development at UC San Diego. His honours include a 2015 Obie Award as co-creator of YOUARENOWHERE (with Andrew Schneider), which was also a New York Times Critic’s Pick and Drama Desk nominee, and a Bessie Award nomination for sound design and original music for The Wooster Group’s Early Shaker Spirituals.
Performance video (second) (Vimeo) ↗
Review: San Diego Union-Tribune ↗