Experimental musician Renzo Spiteri performs original composition, Quintessence, as part of the Open Works Lab series of events. Johnathan Cilia learns all about what promises to be an immersive sound experience.
With Valletta 2018 now peeping at us from around the corner, the Valletta 2018 Foundation and the artist collective Open Works Lab have teamed up to bring us a collaborative three-year project that will form part of Malta’s European Capital of Culture Programme.
The works involved is part of an important, experimental part of the larger programme and promises an innovative approach with a long-lasting impact. This collaboration sees an artistically-driven team develop and launch a series of cultural and artistic events, named Quintessence.
Quintessence involves several genres and performances styles, bringing together cultural operators and artists who have extensive experience in the artistic conception, design, development, administration and management of various local and international projects and who also share a strong track record in collaborating with a number of organisations on several platforms.
Like Valletta 2018, Open Works Lab seeks to capitalise on Malta’s unique position in the middle of the Mediterranean to produce a long-lasting cultural and artistic legacy.
The organisation develops work that is both intimate, tapping into Malta’s roots and origin, and experimental, always seeking what lies beyond the horizon of what we know already.
The collective operates by the core values of research, collaboration and cultural legacy. Well, they certainly couldn’t have chosen a more apt musician to start off their series. Master musician Renzo Spiteri opens this series with a live performance showcasing his newest composition, Quintessence.
As an artist who constantly surprises in his productions and his live shows, Renzo’s show will see the artist creating an immersive sound experience based on an intricate narrative of his creation.
Performing a live solo work of complex sound layers, Renzo will be manipulating different sounds and instruments to deliver his emotional take on music, captured in the moment. Premiered at The Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester in partnership with Future Everything Festival 2015, Quintessence promises to be a hypnotic experience, present-ing music and sound as we rarely see it, be it a live show or a recording.
Renzo’s live show is best described as an immersive experience that wraps the audience in an alluring world of sound, created through the use of sampling and live electronic manipulation, a large suspended metal sheet, a fishing line, vocal phrases and a sculptural array of found objects and acoustic instruments.
It is a piece that challenges the audience to reconsider what sound can mean
Renzo is renowned for push-ing his own sonic boundaries... dedicated to expanding the musical vocabulary of his performance practice and compositional technique has led to an in-depth study of modern technology and techniques to create music that has a strong sculptural and dimensional aspect to it.
It comes as no surprise then that he enjoys the endorsement of top percussion brands like Yamaha and Paiste and is artistic director for multiple music festivals, such as Għanafest and Malta World Music Festival.
Rave reviews, lauding “an immense performance”, describing how “the set lasted for 45 minutes but felt like 10, as we were fully entranced as an audience”, abound, testimony of those who attended the premier of his show.
Clips of his shows feature an experimental Renzo creating audio-scapes from his assortment of items to create a beautiful cacophony, one that somehow works. It can be said that collaborations were the original inspiration for Quintessence; an artistic collaboration with the Royal Conservatoire of Music of The Hague in September 2012, where Renzo was invited to co-lead workshops, produced part of the sounds used in the live performances.
These creative sessions resulted in the vocal phrases by Leah Uijterlinde and Egle Petrosiute, former students at the conservatory. This collaboration was one of the events brought about by invitation of the city of The Hague, former Dutch candidate competing for the title of Cultural Capital of Europe in 2018.
Quintessence promises to display the forefront of artistic experiments via a digital age storytelling technique. The technique brings audiences together to discover and experience the meeting point between live performer, sound art, story, music and digital technology.
It is a piece that challenges the audience to reconsider what sound can mean and how the boundaries of self and world, performer and spectator, organic and inorganic, sound and instrument are rendered fluid and all-encompassing.
Quintessence takes place on Friday, Saturday and next Sunday at 8pm at Spazju Kreattiv, St James Cavalier, Valletta. Tickets are available online.
www.kreattivita.org/en/event/quintessence