13 October, 10.00am to 1.00pm and 2.30pm to 5.30pm – International Museum and Library of Music, Bologna (Italy) –EVENTS HALL
This event aims to explore the millenary relationship between calligraphy and music in China, starting from tradition and ending with recent artistic and musical experiments inspired by this powerful union. Chinese calligraphy is usually defined: “silent but have musical harmony”. Similarities between calligraphy and music go even beyond the concept of harmony: tone color is like writing nature, acoustic quality is like stroke quality, intonation is like accurate writing skill, volume is like writing intensity, tone range is like the comparison of writing changes, tempo is like pause and transition when writing, and rhythm in music is like partial or total arrangement of calligraphic works, also called“ rhythm” in Chinese. Starting from these similarities, the close relationship between calligraphy and music has influenced the artistic activity of both calligraphers and musicians since ancient times, impregnating China’s artistic and musical culture. Retracing the whole history that unites these two arts, we will explore the earliest Chinese musical notation systems involving the use of characters, the first calligraphic performative experiments dating back to the Tang era (618-907), the close relationship that has always existed in China between word, sound and visual display, then we will move to the experiments of contemporary calligraphers and musicians who seek to make the union between these two arts the core of their artistic conception, and finally we will give the floor to the artists themselves who will describe in detail the creative process behind a today’s“ musicalligraphy performance”. This event is also an opportunity to show for the first time the collection of Chinese musical instruments belonging to the“ Museo internazionale e biblioteca della musica”.
Speakers:
Luo Qi (China Academy of Art): Sounds of Ink – The Musicality of Writing and The Ode to Spirituality
Uta Lauer (Hamburg University): Brushes in Motion – Calligraphy and Performance
Frank Kouwenhoven (CHIME, Leiden): Words, Sounds and Visual Display as a Symbiotic Domain in Chinese Culture
Lorenzo Chiaramonte and Zhang Yifei (University of Bologna): The Chinese Musical Instruments of the International Museum and Library of Music, Bologna
Adriana Iezzi (University of Bologna): New Forms of Contemporary Chinese Calligraphy and Music – A Focus on “Musicalligraphy Performances”
Daniela C. Zhang (Slovak Academy of Science): Writing in Rhythm: Contemporary Chinese Ink Art and Calligraphy and its Connection with Music
Zhang Zhenzhen (Shanghai Conservatory of Music): “Cursive” in Compositions of Four Chinese Composers
Giusy Caruso (Royal Conservatoire Antwerp), Silvio Ferragina (Polytechnic of Milan) and LWT3 (Milan): Sound MAP (Musicalligraphy Augmented Performances)
The conference will be held in English.
This event is part of the project“ WRITE – New Forms of Calligraphy in China: A Contemporary Culture Mirror”, that has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (GA n. 949645). The event is linked to the exhibition “Sounds of Ink: Luo Qi and 30 years of Calligraphyism”.
