Nuova Consonanza

Led by pianist Franco Evangelisti the Gruppo performed as a collective from 65 -71. The focus was to expand both the sonic capabilities of their instruments, but also the sensitivity of each performer within the context of the improvisation. The result(s) remain some of the purist and elevated abstract explorations put to tape retaining both warmth and intelligence. Piano, percussion, double bass, trombone, cello, trumpet, etc are the tools for unparalleled types of aesthetic experiences I was led through and into. This could easily be described as difficult music but only if one remains on the surface of its architecture.

Nuova Consonanza was a brilliant and prolific composer’s collective exploring extended techniques and new sound sources through the medium of improvisation. Although very much a product of its time, their music remains timeless. They were instrumental in founding a radical tradition of western musical improvisation that owed little or nothing to anybody and created some of the strangest music ever made. They were utterly unique.
from John Zorn liner notes, NYC 2006

Aware of the rarefied and marginal presence of contemporary production in the Roman concert scene of the 1950s, a small circle of young composers interested in the avant-garde developed the idea of founding an association dedicated to the promotion and dissemination of contemporary music in Rome. They were convinced of the need to delve into the heart of official Roman musical life to raise a voice of dissent and propose new initiatives. In those years, official concert associations did not foster the knowledge and dissemination of contemporary music except in a completely sporadic and haphazard manner. Thus, the awareness emerged that only by taking action firsthand, directly managing a concert program, as an alternative to existing ones, could new music emerge. The idea took shape in the early 1960s through the efforts of Mauro Bortolotti, Aldo Clementi, Antonio De Blasio, Franco Evangelisti, Domenico Guaccero, Egisto Macchi, Daniele Paris, and Francesco Pennisi.

The name Nuova Consonanza, a reference to a famous 17th-century preface by Ottavio Rinuccini, alludes to the need for ongoing updating and, at the same time, the desire to reclaim trends marginalized by the more radical trends in international music.
Born not as a homogeneous movement of thought, but rather as a meeting of very diverse and musically distant personalities, yet already professionally trained, Nuova Consonanza is founded not on shared aesthetic ideals, but on the need to rejuvenate music in Italy through joint action aimed at disseminating contemporary music, transcending personal positions and individual linguistic paths.

Among the many initiatives Among the most important groups supported, the Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza (GINC), founded in Rome in 1964 by Franco Evangelisti, occupies a place of absolute importance. The only improvisation group composed exclusively of composers, the GINC was the culmination of all the profound changes that had occurred in those years in the composer-performer relationship and aimed to subvert the basic assumption of the open work (the performer becomes composer), transforming the composer into a performer, through an operation of permanent identification between the act of composing and the act of performing. Alongside Evangelisti and Carmine Pepe, it included a large group of non-Italian musicians: Larry Austin, John Eaton, John Heineman, Roland Kayn, William O. Smith, and Ivan Vandor.

From the Associazione Nuova Consonanza website

Nuova Consonanza – Omaggio a Giacinto Scelsi (1976)

Franco Evangelisti (pno,percs)
Giancaro Schiaffini (tb)
Ennio Morricone (tpt. fl)
Giovanni Piazza (horn, fl, vln)
Egisto Macchi (percs, strings)
Antonello Neri (pno)

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