Passepartout Duo will highlight their experimentation with clay and explore the ways in which this material can become a conveyor of and medium for sound. They will also share a performance using clay objects, recordings, electronic systems, and other ideas derived from their interdisciplinary process.
Please note that all attendees must show proof of vaccination to attend. Face masks that cover our guest's mouths and noses are required to be worn at all times, except when they are actively eating or drinking.
Passepartout Duo is a music group comprised of pianist Nicoletta Favari and percussionist Christopher Salvito. Making music that escapes categorization, the duo’s ongoing travel around the world informs the multi-disciplinary collaborations, instrumental compositions, and evocative music videos that constitute their body of work. The musical events they create focus on reconsidering the modalities in which people listen to and connect with music, and are cast from a wide range of aesthetics and disciplines. Taking a from-scratch approach with their musical endeavors, DIY instruments play a central role in their discographic releases. The group's 2020 LP release, called Vis-à-Vis, features compositions written for a portable handmade instrumentation that accompanied the duo during a month-long train journey across Central Asia. The project was started during a residency at the Embassy of Foreign Artists in 2019 (CH), and the album was produced during their residency at the Swatch Art Peace Hotel in 2019/2020 (CN). Their most recent release, called Daylighting (2021), focused on a suite of synthesizers that combine textiles and analog circuits. A residency at AIR Niederösterreich (AT) also provided the duo with time to write new music for acoustic piano and synthesizer, using the Ernst Krenek Institut’s Buchla 100 Series to record their EP titled Epigrams. The group’s Sound Envelopes project, featuring electronic musical postcards that connect people and places through sound, was presented at the Nakanojo Biennale in 2019 (JP). The duo’s debut EP, a collaborative project with visual artists Yumo Wu and Yannis Zhang (CN), took inspiration from a small fishing village in the north of Iceland, called Ólafsfjörður (2018). The ensemble has also performed at prominent music festivals like Rewire (NL), the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK), the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival (US), the Festival de La Habana de Música Contemporánea (CU), the Sounding Now Festival (SG), the Summartónar Festival (FO), and the Dark Music Days Festival (IS). 