Voci vicine 2.0
passion in 4 parts for journalist-narrator, video, ensemble, and electronics
The stage is set with a journalist, an ensemble and a throng of voices and faces: Italians that bring
shames about their ever-recurrent tragedies, screaming words of hatred filled with emotions. It’s the
voice of indignation the media bring everyday to Italian homes: a force as well as a weakness arising
from pleas, illiterate tirades of extrovert tongues. From earthquakes to white deaths, from the problem
of waste to climate change: the voices of a world that reacts, rebels and pursues its desire for freedom.
How close are we to such voices?
[…] voices and faces denouncing, telling and screaming about tragedies in videos projected on a screen
merge with the sound of instruments on stage and electronic sounds. These sounds amplify emotions
and accompany the narration, doubling the melodic evolution of the words until they replace them […]
The relationship between the projected image and the produced sound is continuously evolving […],
involving the audience […], capturing their attention as they watch what is happening in front of them […]
prompting them to think […]
Annoyance? Pity? Empathy? What emotions do we experience when confronted with the Italians’
unbridled despair?
Monique Ciola, 27/07/2025, www.lesalonmusical.it
Luppi, P. (2025). Annuario della critica musicale italiana 2025. Libreria Musicale Italiana, Lucca
[Cifariello] Ciardi […] very imaginatively and impressively combines his declared commitment and criticality
towards the authorities and media reality into a comprehensive four-part whole, marking it at the end with
the passion of the forgotten. […] a large whole that builds up to an explosion. In this whole conglomerate of
images and personal storytelling, centuries of operatic experience from the Apennine Peninsula […]are
discernible, […]the composer does not shy away from, but skilfully and thoughtfully incorporates into his Voci
vicine […] Video recordings of the uprising and characteristic voices and words full of rage, despair and irony
never sink into resignation or escapism[…] In Ciardi’s work Voci vicine 2.0, created ten years after the original
multimedia project commissioned by the theatre in Reggio Emilia, even after the passage of time, there is no
place resignation or acceptance of the chaotic reality in the style of “that’s just the way it is”. There is no place
to turn your head, but such a situation could be anywhere else. Ciardi has proven with his work that he sincerely
believes that even an artistic drop can become a waterfall in a community of conscious people.
Maja Stanetti, dec.2024, www.glazba.hr
Performances
Cividale del Friuli, Mittelfest 2024 – Disordini, Teatro Ristori, 27/07/2024 (liner notes, review)
Zagreb, Cantus Ensemble Concert Cycle, Small Hall of the Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall, 9/12/2024 (review)
Bologna, Teatro del Baraccano, 16/12/2024 (liner notes)
Roma, Festival di Nuova Consonanza, Auditorium Parco della Musica, 18/12/2024 (liner notes, Riccardo Iacona interview)
