Vice Versa: Alessandro Bosetti, amplified soprano saxophone & Ricardo Arias, bass balloon kit, etc.
After convening over black coffee a year ago, Bosetti and Arias finally debut their duo which draws on their inverse, yet similar attitudes toward sound-making: treating traditional instruments as objects and vice versa. Their music reflects their shared interest and practice of electroacoustic music and improvisation.
Ricardo Arias was born in Bogotá. He has lived in Barcelona, The Hague, and currently resides in New York City. He studied composition and electroacoustic music with Chilean composer Gabriel Brncic at the Phonos Foundation in Barcelona and flute with Hiroshi Kobayashi and Joan Bofill, also in Barcelona. During 1995-1996 Arias studied computer music at the Institute of Sonology in The Hague. He holds a BA in Anthropology from Hunter College in New York City. Most of Arias’s music is improvised and made in collaboration with other musicians. Apart from occasionally playing the flute, he uses unconventional instruments and found objects as sound sources. He has performed with a shifting array of small found objects, amplified with piezo-electric transducers. Since 1992 he has focused almost exclusively on the balloon kit, a number of rubber balloons attached to a suitable structure and played with the hands and a set of accessories, including various kinds of sponges, pieces of Styrofoam, rubber bands, etc. Arias has been artist in residence at Harvestworks and at Engine 27 and was a fellow at the Civitella Ranieri Center (Umbria, Italy.) He has collaborated with numerous improvising musicians including a trio with Vic Rawlings and Tatsuya Nakatani, a duo with Michel Doneda and a duo with Stephane Rives. In July 2006, right before the Israeli attack on Lebanon began, he worked in Beirut with various Lebanese improvisers, including Sharif Sehnaoui, Raed Yassin, Christine Sehnaoui, and Mazen Kerbaj, among others.
Alessandro Bosetti was born in Milan. A composer, saxophonist and sound artist, he works on the musicality of spoken words and unusual aspects of spoken communication and has produced text-sound compositions featured in live performances, radio broadcasts, and recordings for labels of experimental music. His work inhabits the space between sound anthropology and composition. Field research and interviews often build the basis for his abstract compositions. As a saxophonist he has developed an original instrumental language that incorporates extended techniques, noises, and a strong influence from electronic music. He has performed in all European countries, the USA and Japan. He has had broadcasts and record releases in Germany, Spain, France, Italy, New Zealand and the USA. Bosetti lives and works in Berlin. [For more on Bosetti, see October 9th.]
