BachBjörk

BachBjörk gathers and develops the musicological research carried out around the NEMA Ensemble’s project of the same name, first presented in the Fondazione Pietà de’ Turchini season and subsequently taken on tour with performances in Italy and across Europe. The publication treats the project itself as an object of inquiry, focusing on the repertoire and the ways in which it is reactivated in the present. The portmanteau title signals a working hypothesis grounded in dialogue between traditions, practices, and modes of listening, in which Bach’s Baroque legacy and Björk’s universe are understood as historically situated yet aesthetically productive fields.
The volume reconstructs the curatorial genesis of BachBjörk as a “fluid field” destined to evolve, tracing the transformations that occur as materials and references move through different institutional contexts, spaces, and audiences. One section is devoted to Björk, examined in terms of form, timbre, and performance, with particular attention to the relationship between voice, composition, and technological mediation. A further line of inquiry addresses the reception of Bach in contemporary culture: continuities, reuses, rewritings, and processes of translation that contribute to renegotiating the meaning of the repertoire.
In keeping with the Fondazione Pietà de’ Turchini’s commitment to dialogue between historical heritage and today’s music, the volume offers critical tools to read BachBjörk both as a curatorial practice and as a case study in contemporary processes of hybridization.