Soundmorphosis

Paolo Scoppola

Artwork Description:

A grand piano, a digital console and a large screen that wraps around the stage. Danilo Rea sits at the piano, concentrates and begins to improvise. The notes come out of the piano and turn into colored signs on the screen. Paolo Scoppola observes them, modifies them using the console and sends them back to the musician's eyes to stimulate his imagination. Thus begins a complex dialogue between the two artists, a journey through a series of improvisations, both musical and visual, each with its own character but linked by the constant desire to discover the deep relationships between the language of sounds and that of images. In this fluidity of content, Danilo Rea improvises spanning different genres, from classical to jazz, film music and pop, without remaining locked into any precise genre.The concert, in fact, puts musical improvisation at center stage. Alongside this cultural heritage of the 20th century is a computer, a symbol of the 21st century, which, however, neither seeks to produce electronic music nor to create any content on its own. It simply offers a tool for creating interactions. It is software developed by Paolo Scoppola that captures sound waves to detect the instants when piano keys are pressed. These pulses are given to generative graphics algorithms whose execution is manipulated by the video performer's own hands, which modify the images as they are created. The entire process occurs by following the rhythm of the notes, allowing the performer to duet with the pianist.