INSTRUMENTAL FREAK SHOW

Instrumental freak show is a manifesto on diversity.

The work by Giovanni Verrando for voice, transformed and invented instruments, video, staging and electronics, presents a peculiar vision of sound, divergent and deformed, the outcome of a long research on the relation between lutherie, sound and composition.
The project derives from a personal study by the composer on the literature that deals with freak shows, minstrel shows, dime museums, vaudeville, and so forth.
Most of the musical instruments have been expressly reproduced or invented for this work: daxophones, string instruments with twin caliber strings, digital hyper-instruments made by electronics. The 30 minutes of music are divided into five episodes, each of which features a peculiar sound, a specific instrumentation and a different character.
Instrumental freak show thus deals with diversity as a powerful engine of the world. Every agglomerate of matter or of existences, every city, can be viewed as an open freak show, cleansed of all suffering, disdain and abuse, where we can appreciate the deformity of others and become richer through it. The materials and bodies we come into contact with, are possible sources of richness if we observe their capacity to produce knowledge and awareness.
Therefore, every subject is a freak.
I am a freak.

Instrumental freak show is a work commissioned by Ensemble Interface, funded by Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.

TEAM

Composition: Giovanni Verrando
Music & Production: Ensemble Interface
Voice: Giulia Zaniboni
Video: Michele Innocente, Giovanni Verrando
Set & Light design: Angelo Linzalata
Sound direction: Paolo Brandi
Instrument maker: Andrea Tremolada

EVENTS

2 October 2020 
Biennale Musica 
Teatro alle Tese, Venice, Italy 

23 November 2020 
Festival Milano Musica 
Teatro Elfo Puccini, Milan, Italy