Caterina Barbieri

Can music put an audience into a trance? Italian composer Caterina Barbieri clearly does not rule this out for her music, and has become the star of a younger generation of composers with performances at the Barbican Centre, the Philharmonie de Paris or the Biennale di Venezia. Her music is an intimate exchange between humans and technology: using a modular synthesizer, she designs complex sonic universes in which sounds emerge and disappear as if by themselves; through synthesis, psychoacoustics and repetition, she makes sound waves dance and her audience enter other spheres. Having already played a concert at the Elbphilharmonie with Lyra Pramuk, she now returns for a solo audiovisual concert to close the Summer Festival (where she also composes the music for the play EXTRA LIFE, which runs shortly before). Barbieri brings her latest album “Spirit Exit”, which opposes the covid isolation with huge inner worlds and spans a reference arc from mystical texts of the 16th century to posthuman theories of philosopher Rosi Braidotti. “We can’t know where the spirit goes, but as Caterina Barbieri’s music continues to stretch toward new dimensions, the journey feels every bit as thrilling and blissful as the possible destination.” (Electronic Sound Magazine)