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After years of classical cello training and massive involvement in youth orchestra programs (and a psychology bachelor somewhere in between), in 2017 I started exploring new ways of learning, and developing a personal use of both my instrument & voice.
I started by creating original pieces from spontaneous improvisations. During these years my research has developed through different dimensions, influenced by traditional, jazz, folk and Musical Theatre repertoires, and interweaving with travels, community engagement, creativity workshops, ecology and conservation.
And it still feels like this is just the beginning of it!
The voices
I like to braid cello and voice together, sometimes starting from a traditional tune, or an image or concept, other times improvising both parts from bare emotion and seeing what happens.
Piano and guitar are a great help in composing as well, and I have written a couple of songs for voice and guitar in an indie/folk style.
Conservation and ecology
Most of my composition work focuses on the search for connection, relationship and communication with the natural environment, its elements and complexity.
I collaborate with marine scientists since 2018: we brainstorm, I create original music, and we imagine new approaches and formats for outreach strategies that bring science and arts together, to raise awareness about marine mammals conservation. Our last endeavor was to co-organize the workshop “Arts as a tool for communicating marine mammal science” during the World Marine Mammals Conference in Barcelona, in December 2019 (you can find out more about it at www.marmart.net ).
My passion in natural sciences and conservation, and my desire to combine it more and more with my creative work, brought me also here to the Sitka Centre for Art and Ecology, where I have been invited as artist in residence for 3 months between January and April 2020.
Improvento – Cello and Voice, 2018
A song from 2018, inspired by my close relationship with the wind: we are singers and travelers, always changing… So far I performed it in Belgium, Italy, UK and Oregon, US. I wrote it during an artistic residency from the IYMF in 2018.
Sound mix and editing by Eli Neuman-Hammond. Spring Equinox Concert, March 2020, Sitka Center.
Monk Seal’s Home – Cello and Voice, 2019
A folk-style song inspired by art-and-science collaboration with Luigi Bundone, a friend and marine biologist who researches Mediterranean Monk Seals.
I first performed the song during the workshop “Arts as a tool for communicating marine mammal science” during the World Marine Mammals Conference in Barcelona, in December 2019.
While in residence at the Sitka Center, I used it as part of the New Worlds Project in my outreach activities: at the Panther Creek Community Center and the Nestucca Valley School. As part of my workshops, the school kids explored and made sea sounds to accompany it, and sang the chorus with me. It was much fun!!
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And for World Ocean Day 2020, on June 9th, the song became a place and time of sharing and remote-celebration of the ocean and its dwellers. I launched an open call for “ocean sounds” on my blog’s newsletter, and some marine-creative friends contributed to a new and enriched version of the song… that you can listen to below!
With warm thanks to the marine talents of Margot Langan, Federica Vecchio, Rossella Fabbri, Fabiana Fabbri, Lorenzo Narici & Luigi Bundone.
You can read the whole World Ocean Day post here. Enjoy 😀
C’era Una Volta – Cello and Voice, 2020
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Song from the Oregonforest, with lyrics in Italian. For Cello and Voice. (March 2020, Sitka Center, OR.)
Lyrics translation: Once upon a time in the forest, there was a light. But whether it was really there or not, none can tell… Once upon a time in the forest, there was a light, once upon a time I would have named her “Spring”. But whether it was really there or not, none can tell… Once upon a time in the forest there was a pace, once upon a time in the forest, there was a blue night. Once upon a time in the forest there was a seeker. But whether he was really there or not, I don’t know anymore… Once upon a time in the forest, there was a light. It shone peacefully under the tall trees. It shone peacefully in the obscure darkness. But whether it was there or not, I can’t tell for sure… Once upon a time in the forest, there was a voice. It flowed through the trees, under mosses and flowers, on the elks’ antlers, in the cougar’s footprints. Once upon a time in the forest there was a song: it whispered to the stars, to the flying birds. Once upon a time in the forest there was a spell-singer. But whether she was really there or not, who could tell you… Once upon a time in the forest there was a story. And the story tells, more or less this: That in every forest there is a light, there is a voice, there is a spell-singer; in every forest there is darkness, there is a blue night; In every forest there is a story to tell, so now sing it, sing it yourself… And I’ll accompany you.
Musical Portraits
A musical portrait (my words) is a personal improvisation, spontaneously made for a person or situation that may -in different ways- ask for it. I met such people often during my travels, and I am building up a musical portraits gallery through the years and the communities I visited.
It is usually a cello and voice piece, but it may include percussion and talking as well..even dance sometimes. It really is an original improvisation, a moment of shared music-making, and usually ends up being emotionally intense for both me and the portrayed person.
Impromarco – Cello and Voice, 2017
The first musical portrait I ever made, and my first experience of a “finished” improvisation. It came out of gratitude for the big heart of a friend, who helped me through my first foreign-life experience as an Erasmus student, in France in 2017.
Unless when clearly specified, all the drawings, paintings, pictures, writing scraps and music you find on this website are imagined and created by me, Altea Narici, with patience and care. If you wish to know more about them, to use them virtually, or are interested in prints, originals or recordings, please get in touch with me! I ask you in any case, not to use/share them out of my knowledge, and never for earning purposes.