for voice and live electronics (2024)

First performance Festival Teatri del Suono, Trieste Sala Elio Luttazzi
Clémence Martel, voce | Alessandro Ratoci, live electronics

From the Greek ergo (work) and phobos (fear), ergophobia refers to an excessive and persistent fear of one’s own work and the daily tasks and commitments it entails.

This piece draws on the words of the Italian poet Dino Campana (1885–1932), a troubled figure in Italian literature who emerged from a provincial bourgeois background and stood firmly against the common middle- class values that measured a man’s worth by his labor. Considered mentally ill, misunderstood, and spending much of his life in and out of psychiatric institutions, Campana openly mocked his own condition, ironically calling himself the “electric Campana” after undergoing numerous e l ectroshocks.

In homage to the American composer James Tenney (1934–2006) and his pioneering work in noise synthesis, the music channels the intimate physiology of the mouth into an imagined marine l andscape through amplification and electronic transformations.

Conceived as a delicate exploration of the oral cavity, it employs various microphones, such as laryngophones and large- diaphragm models and different types of windshields, including foam and metal screens, to sculpt resonance and subtly reshape or soften explosive consonants. Amplification shapes and unveils aspects of human vocal production that are normally inaudible or fail to project acoustically into musical form. Through this technology, the voice merges with environmental sonorities to yield timbres that transcend the conventional boundaries of vocal expression, further connecting the piece’s thematic exploration of labor, fear, and poetic resonance with an evolving sonic landscape.