Photo: Michele McDonald

NEW MUSIC NOW

SOUND ICON   

FAUSTO ROMITELLI'S Professor Bad Trip

SALVATORE SCIARRINO'S Infinito Nero

After exploding onto the ICA stage last season with Georg Friederich Haas’ In vain, Boston-based contemporary music group Sound Icon returns with a program of sonic audaciousness. Performing works by two of Italy’s most-renowned composers, the sinfonietta-sized ensemble will dive into the sounds of altered states of mind: religious ecstasy and psychodelia.

Finally receiving its Boston debut, Fausto Romitelli’s notorious Professor Bad Trip has been called one of the decade’s must-hear compositions. An ecstatic plunge into the psychedelic, the composition exists in the gnarly world of spectral music, but throbs with trance-like energy, referencing prog rock, dub step, and the rave scene in a sprawling tour-de-force.

Salvatore Sciarrino’s enigmatic and imaginative Infinito Nero is based on the ecstatic visions of early 17th century mystic St. Maria Maddalena de’Pazzi. Featuring internationally renowned soprano Janna Baty, Sciarrino’s work depicts, with frightening clarity, a woman overtaken and possibly maddened by religious ecstasy.

Presented in cooperation with the Boston University Center for New Music.


Sound Icon is a Boston-based contemporary ensemble committed to performing works that have redefined our understanding of music. Sound Icon attempts to engage audiences in a dialogue about what progressive music really is: music that redefines rules, experiences, and boundaries.

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