GIACOMO VANELLI
Sanjeshka
Giacomo Vanelli has had a long-standing collaboration with performance artist Sanjeshka, exploring the intersection between sound and performance art. A highlight of this collaboration was the immersive project Tenderness is Reserved for the Unpredictable, curated by Eleonora Angiolini and staged simultaneously in two locations: the Monastery of Santa Maria Assunta in Italy and Sanjeshka's studio in Brooklyn. Vanelli provided the sonic backdrop for the performance with a live soundscape built from modulating field recordings and samples of an organist, creating a continuous acoustic environment. This performance, deeply rooted in the concept of ritual and repetition, aimed to evoke an archaic state of contemplation, mirroring human experiences with nature and unpredictable emotions. This collaboration represents Vanelli's integration of random modulation and sound design into profound artistic settings.
Perpetually Changing The Meaning Of What Was Spiritually Intended (2022): A filmed performance in collaboration with Sanjeshka, awarded at the Bolzano Art Weeks.
Tenderness Is Reserved for the Unpredictable (2022): An audio installation for Sanjeshka and Dejana Pupovac, focused on extended performance and sound experimentation.
Roberto Paci Dalò
Ararat
The concert, entitled Ararat, sees the presence of composers and musicians Roberto Paci Dalò e Giacomo Vanelli. The Mount Ararat: sacred peak, lost heart, indelible symbol of Armenian identity. Today it stands beyond the border, in Turkish territory, but continues to dominate the horizon of the capital Yerevan. It is the mountain of Noah’s Ark, of salvation and rebirth, but also the mountain of absence, of denied land, of desire. In the silence of its snow-covered slopes, the condition of the diaspora is reflected, the wound of separation and, at the same time, the hope of a return. The term Armenian Genocide, sometimes Armenian Holocaust or Armenian Massacre, refers to the deportations and eliminations of Armenians perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1916, which caused approximately 3 million deaths. The Armenian Genocide has never been recognized by the Turkish government. The term genocide was used for the first time by the Polish-Jewish jurist Raphael Lemkin to designate, following the extermination of Armenians carried out in the Ottoman Empire in 1915-16, a new and shocking situation for public opinion; However, it was only after the extermination carried out by the Nazis during the Second World War and the establishment of an international tribunal to punish such conduct that the word genocide began to be used in international language to indicate a specific crime, accepted in both international law and the domestic law of many countries. On the occasion of this commemoration, an intimate concert was conceived, conceived as a moment of reflection, memory and emotional resonance. Two performers – voice, clarinet and electronics – create a sound texture that crosses temporal and geographical boundaries, mixing languages and instruments. Traditional Armenian music is rediscovered, reworked and transformed through the use of electronic technologies and contemporary techniques, without ever losing the deep bond with its roots.
Ararat
written and performed by Roberto Paci Dalò and Giacomo Vanelli
Roberto Paci Dalò clarinets, voice, live electronics
Giacomo Vanelli live electronics
Voice off Boghos Levon Zekiyan Texts Sayat-Nova, Daniel Varoujan
Production Giardini Pensili, Usmaradio
First performance and broadcasting: 24 April 2025 Giardini Pensili, Rimini, Italy / Usmaradio