68th International Festival of Contemporary Music

The 68th International Festival of Contemporary Music, titled Absolute Music and dedicated to the concept of absolute music without any extra-musical or visual references will run from 26 September to 11 October 2024, directed by Lucia Ronchetti.

The Absolute Music festival will present some of the major protagonists of the current global electronic and digital scene, as well as performers and improvisers active in the field of experimental jazz, highlighting the digital processes and treatments that permeate every aspect of present-day musical creation, production, performance, distribution and reception.

The Festival will be divided into ten different sections.

POLYPHONIES presents complex compositions for orchestra, with soloists and electronic processing. The sophisticated techniques developed by the outstanding composers featured in this section generate monumental acoustic architectures through the construction of refined sound stratigraphies. At Teatro La Fenice the Orchestra del Teatro La Fenice and Ensemble Modern (Silver Lion) conducted by Tito Ceccherini will perform the Italian premieres of Wound (2022) for ensemble and orchestra by the Golden Lion 2024 Rebecca Saunders.
ASSOLO is a section devoted to sophisticated virtuoso instrumental compositions.
LISTENING/HEARING is an installation space for individual listening that will be available throughout the Festival with sound diffusion curated by French composer and sound engineer Thierry Coduys.
SOUND STRUCTURES is a section dedicated to large-scale compositions that explore the physical nature of sound.
ABSOLUTE JAZZ features soloists from different cultural backgrounds who draw on the language of jazz in their improvisational research.
COUNTERPOINTS presents the large-scale contrapuntal mechanisms present in the field of contemporary composition.
SOLO ELECTRONICS comprises three concerts with renowned protagonists of experimental electronics and sophisticated technologies for the space of Pavilion 30 in Forte Marghera.
PURE VOICES is a section designed to suggest the possibility that vocal music can give rise to pure music projects, leading the listener to an ecstatic and meditative experience.
MUSICA RESERVATA, section featuring ambitious research works for one instrument or for a small ensemble of virtuoso instrumentalists
RICERCARE is a theoretical section in which the protagonists of the festival will reflect on various aspects of their compositional and performance work in relation to the concept of Absolute Music.

A new cycle of audio documentaries for Rai Radio3’s Tre soldi will be made again this year by Giovanna Natalini, documenting the compositional workshops of the young artists selected for the Biennale College Musica.

The programme may be subject to variations.