NERO LENTO

Tiziana Bertoncini graduated in violin at the Siena Conservatory and in painting at the Fine Arts Academy in Carrara. After performing in orchestras and chamber ensembles, she focused on contemporary, written and improvised music. She has been playing on many international festivals and venues and has been part of numerous dance, theater, video and multi-media projects. Her solo work includes composition, performance and installation. In 2011 her electro-acoustic piece Nur Sand was awarded at the competition Ferrari (r)écouté organized by the ZKM in cooperation with hr2-kultur.
From 1996 to 2001 she was a guest artist-lecturer during the New York University summer courses in Italy, leading master classes of improvisation. She was also an artist in residence at the “Bridge guard – Residential Art/Science Centre” in Stúrovo – Slovakia, at the AIR Krems – Austria, at the Künstlerhaus Otte1 and at the GEDOK Lübeck – Germany.

NERO LENTO for violinist and tape

For last several years I have been approaching the theme of psychosis as a way revealing another self, which could be perceived as “possession”, irruption of the Unknown, of the Stranger.

In Nero Lento the violinist and the tape are figures of an off kilter music – theater piece. The tape is not only an additional musical instrument, but a sort of living presence, the alter-ego, the puppeteer which moves the violinist, who reacts, must react, irrespective of her own will. The breath of time and the flow of the music are interrupted by obsessive, repetitive, compulsive language elements: whispered text fragments, words obsessively repeated, consonants as percussive elements doubled by the violin and finally the delirium. This project is constantly evolving.

Tiziana Bertoncini

To book Tiziana’s performance, please contact:
Joanna John / hello@kissthefrog.no

Tiziana Bertoncini, who performs with a minimal lighting and then with violin, tape, her whispering voice and her diabolic mimic reaches one of the most intense moments of the Festival. She arouses Schizophrenic states as a David Lynch movie could not do better.
– Clemens Marschall about the Graz Hörfest 2010

As becomes quickly apparent, Italian violinist Tiziana Bertoncini is classically trained. Her pool of gestural contours are rooted in string practices that date back centuries, which makes her capacity for reverse-engineering the technical knowhow engrained inside her fingers and muscular memory all the more refreshing – technique throwing her violin to the lions, not exploited to replicate the music she already knows how to play.
– Philip Clark, The Wire