Ars Ludi

Saturday 17 September 2022
Ca’ Giustinian, Venice

La Biennale di Venezia will present the Silver Lion to the percussion ensemble Ars Ludi “for its performing virtuosity and capacity to transform the world of percussion into a compelling Machina Mundi”.

Antonio Caggiano, Rodolfo Rossi and Gianluca Ruggeri, the founders of Ars Ludi in 1987, are “the ideal interpreters of the new repertory of instrumental theatre, charismatic and histrionic musicians who transform each percussive sequence into a highly theatrical event, contributing to create a new vision of contemporary musical production in which the most complex scores are presented with an exhilarating and communicative approach to performing” (from the motivation for the award).
Lucia Ronchetti writes: “The contemporary percussionist is a special musician, his arsenal of instruments has expanded with the evolution of composition and the dedicated repertory to include everyday objects, electrical mechanisms, mechanical instruments and digital percussions, as well as percussion instruments from other musical traditions. The percussionist must learn different techniques and move nimbly within his set, which sometimes occupies the entire stage and represents an imaginary theatre activated by the percussionist himself, like a deus ex-machina, vocal operator, performer and demiurge”.

Ars Ludi is a trio of percussionists founded in 1987, consisting of Antonio Caggiano, Rodolfo Rossi and Gianluca Ruggeri. From the beginning of their careers, the three performers have set out on an artistic journey that moves across two interpretative dimensions. On the one hand, advancing the contemporary repertoire for percussion in concerts on the international stage, performing the most important works for percussion by John Cage, Mauricio Kagel, Iannis Xenakis, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Giorgio Battistelli, Louis Andriessen, Edgar Varèse, Steve Reich, Giacinto Scelsi, Luciano Berio and Francesco Filidei; on the other hand, by supporting the experimental composition of many young Italian authors with commissions and premiere performances. Ars Ludi’s work is also distinguished by the ideation and production of multimedia musical theatre events, collaborating in the ideation process with the protagonists of different creative directions, such as Florian Fricke of the Popol Vuh; by the production of the projects Land im Klang by Alvin Curran, Macchine Virtuose by Luigi Ceccarelli, Aphrodite by Giorgio Battistelli and Polaris by Lorenzo Pagliei. As active participants in the Progetto Dello Scompiglio, the members of Ars Ludi experiment with percussion performance in natural environments and with the connection between sound and environmental space in new forms of interpretation for the percussion repertory.