Columbia Sounds and Infuse present Agnese Toniutti, piano

According to Drama Musica, in 2018-19 out of 1445 concerts worldwide, only 76 orchestra seasons included works by women composers.

These numbers led Agnese Toniutti to do research on women who have composed music for piano. She was especially curious to find those professionally connected to the composers she has focused on in her own musical journey (Giacinto Scelsi, John Cage, Giancarlo Cardini, Dick Higgins and the Fluxus movement). This is how this concert program came into being in conjunction with personal and professional stories. When possible, Toniutti sought to include the composers’ own voices, which will be heard through audio recordings in alternation with their piano compositions.

Composers on the programme include Mieko Shiomi - Fluxus movement artist and composer, Alina Piechowska - as a pianist she worked closely with Giacinto Scelsi, Caterina Venturelli - played and recorded by Giancarlo Cardini, Lucia Dlugoszewski - inventor of the timbre piano while Cage was working on the prepared piano

Programme

• Caterina Venturelli - Canti antichi (2019)

• Maura Capuzzo - Portami con te nel mattino vivace (2013)

• Alina Piechowska - Vacances (2005)

• Lucia Dlugoszewski - Exacerbated Subtlety Concert (Why Does A Woman Love a Man?) (1997, rev. 2000)

• Mieko Shiomi - Fractal Freak n.1 - CAsCAde (1997)

piano Agnese Toniutti

voices Maura Capuzzo, Kate Doyle, Alina Piechowska, Mieko Shiomi, Caterina Venturelli

texts autographs and selected from Interview with Shiomi Mieko, Michelle Elligott, MoMA, 2011, interview by L.Martinis to A.Piechowska, FIS, 2010.

Agnese Toniutti’s work as a pianist focuses on music of the 20th and 21st centuries. She graduated from the Conservatory of Venice where she studied with G. Lovato and completed a thesis on Giacinto Scelsi. Toniutti explores unconventional ways of strengthening communication between performers and audiences by placing contemporary musi in conversation with other artistic disciplines (drama, photography, dance, visual arts and multimedia). Many of her solo recitals are portrait concerts that provide insight into the composer’s creative world through texts and audio selected through musical and archival research. As a soloist and chamber music pianist Toniutti has performed in Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Hungary, Germany and the USA.