copyright
school research
university of hertfordshire
UH recordings
projects
"integrated" music-theatre
Roberto Filoseta in Sadhaka
[photo: David Raynor]
Roberto Filoseta in Sadhaka
[photo: Helen Rainsford]
Katina Kangaris in WMDs
[photo: Mykel Nicolau]
the Acoustic Dream CD is available from UH Recordings
Centred on cross-disciplinary practice, Roberto's research investigates the expressive possibilities and latent theatricality of live musical performance, seeking to expand its language and modalities. Blurring disciplinary boundaries and categories, his music-theatre works re-position music within a performative context in which musical gesture and theatrical action and space are configured as an interactive whole.
His works have been featured in a number of national and international events, including:
- Mayfest 2007 - University of Hertfordshire
- Santarcangelo Festival 2005 - Italy
- Mayfest 2005 - University of Hertfordshire
- Wired up to Wapping - part of SPNM 60th season, Wapping Power Station, London, 5 November 2003
- ISCM - World Music Days 2003, Slovenia
- ISCM - World Music Days 2002, Hong Kong
- Gallery Oldham, Oldham, UK, 28 June 2003
- Robin Howard Dance Theatre at 'The Place', London, 22 January 2003
- IV International Contemporary Music Contest 'Città di Udine', Italy - 25 October 2002
- Galleria Excalibur, Stresa, Italy, September 2001
- Sadler's Wells - Lilian Baylis Theatre, London, 4th December 2001
- Sonic Arts Network Conference, Belfast, Northern Ireland, 4 - 6 May 2001
- En Red O - VIII Simposio de Música Electroacústica - Electric Songs
- Centre de Cultura Contemporánia de Barcelona, 11-13 December 2000
- music-theatre
- physicality and corporeality in music
- interdisciplinarity
- hybridity
- performance
- improvisation
- acoustic and electroacoustic music composition
- music-theatre
- composing for films
- improvisation
Ashley Pearsons and Fabrizia Verrecchia in Captive
[photo: Helen Rainsford]
improvisation
Roberto is also active as a performer of both written and improvised music, using piano, electronics, percussion, sonorous sculptures and other unconventional instruments, as well as body movement.
Roberto has played with some fine exponents of the 'free improvisation' circle, including:- Eddie Prèvost, Trevor Taylor, Paul Dunmall, Gary Smith, Pat Thomas, Jonathan Impett, Clive Bell and Sylvia Hallett.
A recent album, Acoustic Dream, featuring Roberto with Clive Bell and Sylvia Hallett is currently available from UH-Recordings.
Roberto Filoseta with Clive Bell and Sylvia Hallett
Roberto's liner notes for Acoustic Dream:-
There are some interesting parallels between the dream state and the state of mind of artists engaged in improvisation.
Neuroscientists observe brain activity in terms of different kinds of waves, each with its own particular frequency and function. Alpha and Theta brainwaves, which are particularly relevant to the dream state, including daydreaming and meditation, are responsible for inducing a relaxed yet highly receptive state of consciousness and are associated with creative processes, as opposed to Beta brainwaves, for example, which are associated with rational thinking.
Unlike the case of 'written' music, which separates the performance (execution) from the creative process, improvisation, as a process of real-time composition, requires the performers to create in the moment, fully immersed in the present now, a state of 'no-mind' in which rational thinking has little place.
In 'free' improvisation, in particular, which is not based on some previously agreed structure, performers have to rely entirely on their intuition and musical sensibility to interact with the other musicians in the ensemble. Such a process, which clearly privileges the sub-conscious over the conscious level of activity, seems akin to the working of our mind in the dream state, and possibly drawing from a similar kind of brain activity.
But while both dream state and free improvisation have long been an object of study and research, a full understanding of them seems yet out of reach, and the two phenomena remain to us the same as they have ever been: fascinating, mysterious, and inherently dangerous.
RESEARCH OUTCOMES AND PERFORMANCES
WMDs – selected for performance by the 'Society for the Promotion of New Music' for their 60th season, at the Wapping Power Station, London, November 2003. Reviewed by Richard Morrison for The Times on 7 November 2003.
Powerful Machine – selected for performance by the ISCM (International Society for Contemporary Music) for World Music Days 2003 (October), Slovenia; and again at Galleria Excalibur, Stresa, Italy.
Sadhaka – was the prize-winner in “The Sculpted Sound Composer Competition”, and was premièred at the Lilian Baylis Theatre at Sadler's Wells, London, on December 2001. It then received a second performance at the Robin Howard Dance Theatre at The Place, London, January 2003; and a third performance at Gallery Oldham, Manchester, June 2004.
Threnody – selected for performance at the IV International Contemporary Music Contest “Città di Udine”, Italy, October 2003.
Bardo – was selected for performance by the ISCM (International Society for Contemporary Music) for World Music Days 2002, Hong Kong; and again at the Sonic Arts Network Conference, Belfast, Northern Ireland.