Architecture buro
The Edison Studio collective, with the support of Cineteca di Bologna (Film Archive of Bologna), and SIAE - (Società Italiana degli Autori e Editori) for the project SIAE – Classici di Oggi, with the collaboration of the Romaeuropa Festival, since 2016 announces an international music composition contest for moving images every year. The aim of the competition "Sounds of Silences" is to stimulate musical creativity in its interaction with the audiovisual media, particularly for the reinterpretation of historical silent films and the creation of new soundtracks, with a special concern for timbre as in today’s instrumental, electronic and electroacoustic music.
Sounds of Silences organizers aim is to stimulate the finalists to make a valid contribution towards redefining the meaning, aesthetics, and conceptual structures of cinema before the advent of soundtracks, not simply by “accompanying” the images on the screen, but by revealing their original hidden content, thereby giving a new voice to what was previously silent.
The competition takes place in various stages: in the preliminary stage of the competition, entrants must submit an audiovisual work the musical part of which they themselves have composed. Participation in the contest is free. An international jury will then select three finalists among the entrants, who will be invited to create a soundtrack for a medium-length silent movie chosen by Edison Studio in collaboration with the Cineteca di Bologna. A second international jury awards cash prizes to the finalists during a public event as part of the Romaeuropa Festival.
Participation in the competition, both individual and collective, is open to all young composers under 35 of any nationality.
The next edition of the competition is scheduled for 2022.
On 21 October 2020 at the Foyer 1 of the Ex Mattatoio (Testaccio), Rome, as part of the RomaEuropa Festival 2020, the final evening of the 5th edition of the "Sounds of Silences" competition took place. During the event, the films assigned with the finalists' soundtracks were screened. Subsequently, the jury awarded the following prizes:
First Prize - Diego Ratto
motivation:
The music effectively represents the director's restless attention to a threatened and deformed contemporary reality, not without figures of love correspondences, so as the author draws them from his own interiority.
Second Prize - Simone Castellan
motivation:
The drama of humanity threatened by the flames of conflicts, originating in all evidence from social inequalities, is well represented through an ingenious organization of the means of expression.
The formal articulation of the composition is also good, enhancing the poetic quality of the entire film.
motivation:
At the same time, he was able to grasp the dramatic meaning of the subject and the poetry of the graphic sign.
Music "animates" the film in its fullest dimension.
The musical technical choices affirm the current peaceful synthesis between tradition and experimentation.
final jury:
- Valentino Catricalà (curator and critic of contemporary art - director of the ART Section of the Maker Faire, The European Edition, Rome),
- Francesco Giomi (composer - director of the Tempo Reale center in Florence and professor of Electroacoustic Music Composition - Conservatory of Bologna),
- Antonio Poce (composer)
- Giulia di Giovanni (for the Romaeuropa Art and Culture Foundation).
162 candidates from 36 countries participated in the competition.
Selection jury:
Simon Atkinson, Emanuele Casale, Giulio Colangelo, Francesco Giomi, Gabriele Manca, Elio Martusciello, Per Anders Nilsson, Marco Russo Michele Tadini, Barry Truax, Roberta Vacca
The Edison Studio collective, with the support of the Italian Society of Authors and Publishers (SIAE) for the SIAE - Classici di Oggi project, with the
collaboration of the Romaeuropa Festival 2019 and the support of the Cineteca di Bologna, announces the winners of the Sounds of Silences 2019 Competition
Final Evening - Saturday 3 November 2019 - Romaeuropa Festival 2019 - Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Sala Cinema, Rome.
First Prize
to Francesco Altilio
for the soundtrack of Buster Keaton's "The Scarecrow" (1920)
Second Prize
at the Méliès Collective
(Antonio Chirico, Valentina Forte, and Francesco Verdicchia)
for the soundtrack of Buster Keaton's film "The Haunted House" (1921)
Third Prize
to Andrea Marazzi
for the soundtrack of Buster Keaton's "My Wife's Relations" (1922)
final jury:
Monique Veaute (president of the Romaeuropa Arte e Cultura Foundation), Elio Martusciello (composer, professor of electronic music at the Naples Conservatory of Music), Antonio Poce (composer), Martin Figura (painter and video artist), Andrea Ravagnan (Cineteca di Bologna ).
67 candidates from 19 countries participated in the competition.
selection jury:
Simon Atkinson, Valentino Catricalà, Giulio Colangelo, Francesco Giomi, Giulio Latini, Elio Martusciello, Paolo Pachini, Michele Tadini, Barry Truax, Roberta Vacca
Final results of the Sounds of Silences competition
Now in its third edition, the Sounds of Silences International Music Composition Competition for Images concluded with the final evening in which the 4 medium-length films by Charlie Chaplin were screened with the soundtracks specially created by the finalists of the competition.
The jury composed of Monique Veaute (president of Romaeuropa Festival), Valentino Catricalà (Media Art Festival), Carlo Crivelli (composer), Alvin Curran (composer), Ivo Nilsson (composer), and Andrea Ravagnan (Cineteca di Bologna) decreed the following result:
First Prize - Sebastiano Trombatore for the soundtrack of the film "Behind the Screen"
Second Prize - Meno Infinito (Giovanni Tancredi, Andrea Veneri) for the soundtrack of the film "The Vagabond"
Third Prize - Angelo Maria Farro for the soundtrack of "Easy Street"
Fourth Prize - Twelve Lab (Giuliano Anzani, Kyriakos Charalampides) for the soundtrack of "The Rink"
91 composers or groups from 16 countries participated in the competition.
selection jury:
Simon Atkinson, Bret Battey, Valentino Catricalà, Giulio Colangelo, Agostino di Scipio, Ivo Nilsson, Robert Normandeau, Kent Olofsson, Paolo Pachini, Barry Truax,
Final evening Saturday 28 October, as part of the RomaEuropa Festival 2017 at Macro di Testaccio - La Pelanda,
The international jury composed of Giulio Latini (president, lecturer in Multimedia Communication at the "Tor Vergata" University of Rome), Stefania Lo Giudice (Romaeuropa Art and Culture Foundation); Alvin Curran (composer); Andrea Ravagnan (Cineteca di Bologna); Andrew Bentley (composer, Sibelius Academy, Helsinky) awarded the following awards
First prize to Fabrizio Giraudo (Italy)
for the music of "High Sign" (B. Keaton, 1920)
“For having been able to elaborate a mature and effective relationship between sound and images
on the expressive level, in the name of a profound balance between canon and experimentation".
Second prize to Ludovico Failla (Italy)
for the music of "The Goat" (B. Keaton, 1921)
"For having been able to mirror the image with an equally ironic use of sound experimentation".
Third prize to Myriam Boucher (Canada)
for the music of "The Paleface" (B. Keaton, 1921)
"For the punctuality with which sound design comes into contact with the visual arch".
The jury also appreciated the excellent level of music for "Cops" (B. Keaton, 1922) and "Neighbors" (B. Keaton, 1920) written respectively by Xavier Madore and Gabriele Paolozzi.
The competition was attended by 128 composers or groups from 32 countries.
selection jury:
Simon Atkinson, Bret Battey, Andrew Bentley, Anders Mattias Bye, Giulio Latini, Kent Olofsson, Paolo Pachini, Barry Truax.
Final evening: Romaeuropa Festival, 12 November at 9 pm, Casa del Jazz, via di Porta Ardeatina 55, Rome
jury:
president Andrea Ravagnan (Cineteca di Bologna)
Matteo Antonaci (RomaEuropa Foundation)
Giulio Latini (University of Tor Vergata)
Claudio Ambrosini - composer
Ivo Nilsson - composer
Winners:
First Prize to Vincenzo Core
for the music of Buster Keaton's "One Week" (1920)
“[...] for having been able to create with sensitivity, imagination, and courage a composition capable of enhancing Buster Keaton's film, without following the more usual methods linked to American silent comic cinema. By elaborating targeted horizontal and vertical relationships with visual dramaturgy, skilfully using pauses and silences, he succeeds in re-contextualizing the vision of a great classic in the eyes of the contemporary spectator. In addition, Vincenzo Core's work appears consistent with the very title of the competition due to the intelligent use of silences ".
Second Prize Not Awarded
Third Prize to Lorenzo Pezzella
for the music of the film by Segundo de Chomòn (1909) "Une excursion sur Jupiter"
"[...] for having built an effective musical score that finds frequent moments of encounter (but also of autonomy) with the frenetic rhythm of the images, demonstrating to master the language of contemporary electronic composition"
The competition was attended by 196 composers or groups from 26 countries
selection jury:
Giulio Latini, Francesco Antonioni (composer), Fabrizio De Rossi Re (composer), Elio Martusciello (composer), Filippo Paolini - Økapi (composer), Walter Prati (composer)