A HOMAGE TO PHILL NIBLOCK (1933-2024)
ANNA CLEMENTI and KATHERINE LIBEROVSKAYA Zound Delta performance
DAVIDE AIDEN CAPOBIANCO PN90 (Phill Niblock in 90 notes and facts) performance
ASPEC(T) aka MARIO GABOLA and SEC_ WORK performance
PHILL NIBLOCK The Movement of People Working China 88 e Vlada BC videoprojection
on Thursday 7 November 2024 at 7:30pm
free admission up to the capacity of the hall
Museo Hermann Nitsch vico Lungo Pontecorvo 29D Napoli
Phill Niblock (1933-2024) was an intermedia artist using music, film, photography, video and computers. He was born in Indiana in 1933. Since the mid-60’s he created music and intermedia performances which have been shown at numerous venues around the world. He made thick, loud drones of music, filled with microtones of instrumental timbres generating many other tones in the performance space. He said: “What I am doing with my music is to produce something without rhythm or melody, by using many microtones that cause movements very, very slowly.” Simultaneously, he presented films/videos looking at the movement of people working (1973-1991). Since 1985, he had been the director of the Experimental Intermedia Foundation in New York - where he was an artist/member since 1968. He was the producer of Music and Intermedia presentations at EI since 1973 and the curator of EI’s XI Records label. Phill Niblock’s music is available on the XI, Moikai, Mode, Matiere Memoire, Room 40, and Touch labels. DVDs of films and music are available on the Extreme label and Von Archive. He had been Professor of film, video and photography at The College of Staten Island, the City University of New York. In 2014, he was the recipient of the prestigious John Cage Award from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.
www.experimentalintermedia.org
Katherine Liberovskaya is a Canadian intermedia artist based in NYC. Involved in experimental video since the 80’s, she has produced numerous single-channel video art pieces, video installations and video performances, as well as works in other media, that have been shown around the world. Since 2001 her work predominantly focuses on the intersection of moving image with sound/music in various both ephemeral and fixed forms (projections, installations, performances), notably through collaborations with many composers and sound artists in improvised live video+sound concert situations where her live visuals seek to create improvisatory “music” for the eyes. For over 22 years she collaborated with composer/intermedia artist Phill Niblock on various live, video and installation projects. Other frequent collaborators include Dafna Naphtali, Keiko Uenishi, Shelley Hirsch, Barbara Held, Mia Zabelka, Al Margolis (IF,BWANA), David Watson, among many others. In addition to her art work she curates events in experimental video/film, sound/music and A/V performance, notably the yearly Screen Compositions evenings at EI NYC since 2005 and, since 2006 the OptoSonic Tea salons (co-curated with Ursula Scherrer) in NYC and various nomadic locations in North America and Europe as well as on-line during the Covid pandemic. In 2014 she completed a PhD in art practice entitled “Improvisatory Live Visuals: Playing Images Like a Musical Instrument” at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). She is currently the artistic director of Experimental Intermedia NYC.
Italian-Swedish singer Anna Clementi grew up in Rome, where she first studied the flute. There she also completed acting training before moving to Berlin and meeting the composer Dieter Schnebel, with whom she studied experimental vocal music and experimental music theater at Hochschule der Künste (now UdK Berlin). This resulted in several years of collaboration; for example, Clementi participated for a long time in the group Die Maulwerker, founded by Schnebel. She received her first singing lessons in Rome with Michael Aspinall. In Berlin she studied belcanto with Mieko Kanesugi and jazz singing with Kara Johnstad. Anna Clementi sees herself as an “actress of the voice” rather than exclusively as a singer. In this way she also articulates the diversity of her artistic expression, with which she is always searching for new connections between voice, gesture, language, dance and theater. In Berlin, for example, she performed in the group Theater Ikaro and attended various dance schools, where she dedicated herself to contemporary dance and contact improvisation. Anna Clementi has performed at the most important festivals and has premiered numerous works. Many world premieres have been composed especially for her and some of them have been developed together with her. She has worked with composers such as Laura Bianchini, Emanuele Casale, Martin Daske, Fast Forward, Jürgen Grözinger, Michael Hirsch, Rupert Huber, Christian Kesten, Alexander Kolkowski, Olga Neuwirth, Phill Niblock, Daniel Ott, Josef Anton Riedl, Rainer Rubbert, Nicola Sani, Iris ter Schiphorst, Dieter Schnebel, Laurie Schwartz, Stepha Schweiger, Charlotte Seither, Elliott Sharp, Roberta Vacca and many others. Clementi loves the combination of play, lightness and irony and is constantly looking for new ways of expression, which she can unfold with her versatile voice.
In 2022-2023 Phill Niblock made Zound Delta for Anna Clementi: a composition for voice and electronics (voice and field recordings) accompanied by Katherine Liberovskaya doing live video was premiered in Berlin in spring 2023. And then a CD was published on Karlrecords and launched again in Berlin in spring 2024 with Anna performing live and Thomas Stern on electronics and a video by Liberovskaya.
Davide Aiden Capobianco is an Italian composer specializing in contemporary concert music and electroacoustic works for solo performers and ensembles. His compositions explore the human experience, pushing musical boundaries to create compelling narratives. Since 2022, he has been a member of the New York Composer Circle (NYCC), dividing his time between Italy and the USA. He works on various projects, including piano tuning, technician services, music instruction, arranging, orchestrating, and score engraving. He also assists composers in realizing their visions, such as supporting Phill Niblock in completing his compositions.
PN90 (Phill Niblock in 90 notes and facts) is inspired by Phill Niblock’s life and musical legacy, spanning from his birth in 1933 to his passing in 2024. It blends sound and visual elements to create an immersive experience for the audience. The structure revolves around Phill’s 90 years, with each oboe note recorded and looped through Max/MSP, representing a year of his life. As the piece progresses, these notes accumulate into a wall of sound, aiming to reach 95dB or beyond, reflecting Phill’s pioneering approach to music. Projected visuals and text will highlight key moments from Phill’s life, offering a multi-sensory tribute that deepens understanding of his artistic journey, with material drawn from *Phill Niblock: Working Title* and *Phill Niblock: Nothing but Working.* To ensure accuracy, I have collaborated closely with Phill’s partner, Katherine Liberovskaya, and his biographer, Guy De Bièvre, who authored one of the books.
Mario Gabola and SEC_ aka Aspec(t) can be recognised by their original mix of electro-acoustic improvisation, powerful and visceral noise, and power electronics. They have played in Europe, the US and Russia, and are also relentless concert organisers in Naples and all over Campania, which has allowed them to build a wide network of relationships and collaborations.
SEC_ uses a Revox tape recorder to manipulate and mix different sound sources, creating live collages. Mario Gabola makes the saxophone interact with acoustic extensions and a self-built photosensitive system, generating and controlling feedback; the result is an inextricable forest of frenetic sonorities, rhythmic structures, explosions of noise and ancestral cries.
As a duo, they have released one LP, three CDs (two of them in collaboration with Swiss composer/performer Dave Phillips and Polish drummer Andrzej Zaleski), several CDr’s and audiocassettes. They also worked with filmmaker 70fps, and created the music for a super8mm film “Napoli Film” by Finnish Seppo Renvall. Together and separately they have collaborated with musicians Jerome Noetinger, Dave Phillips, Arnaud Riviere, Andy Guhl, Rudolf Eb.er, Agostino Di Scipio, Kamilya Jubran, Olivier Di Placido, Scott Sinclair, Andy Bolus, Jean Philippe Gross, C_C and others.
Mario Gabola and SEC_ met Phill Niblock separately on several occasions and then together in 2016 they were guests to play at his loft in New York. Phill Niblock‘s familiar welcome and help were also crucial to the duo's successful US tour that year.
Aspec(t) will perform a live audio tribute to Phill Niblock and his vocation as a connector between communities and generations of musicians, experimenters and performers from different backgrounds, before the advent of social-media and after, without being dazzled by it and always preferring people-to-people contact.