Selva Suona, the beginning

Dedicating a sound installation to the birth of the international red cross is something which has been floating in my mind for several years.

While flying back home from the concerts in California last October I began to write about it and suddenly it gained a form, a structure.

The first thing I wrote was the invitation to send to the musicians I would have loved to invite to contribute to it.

This is it:

I live in a place that holds an important memory: on June 24th, 1859, the disaster of the Battle of San Martino and Solferino brought to the birth of what i consider to be one of the most revolutionary ideas of humanity: the International Red Cross.
By what i know it has been the first idea of organization that put human care at the center, with no difference in race, nationality, religion and sex.
I live in the heart of the place where the battle that exposed Henry Dunant to the disaster has happened.

Exactly under my feet.
The help given by simple people to rescue the 40.000 injured humans and bury the 30.000 deads of that day impressed this man so much that, three years later he created the international red cross, which this year is celebrating its 150th birthday.

Red Cross says they will not celebrate this event as they think it is more important to offer their support to the real goal of the organization: helping people.

I live in this place.
I play my music in this place.
I produce wine and make my living in this place.
I feel this place.
I want to give something back to this place.

I would like to use this place to make people aware of what a single human can do, of how big can be the result of a reaction to a feeling.

I consider that what Henri Dunant has done should give a sense of hope.
I would like to use music for this.
The idea is to host a sound installation to be diffused through the vineyards, the trees, the fields of this place.
On the evening of June 24th, after the sunset me and Stefano Castagna will play our “Tavole di Flos”, handmade sound boards. That is the time that the battle stopped after having began at 5,39 am.
The sound of the Tavole di Flos will be recorded and it will be diffused from the morning after in the vineyards, in the wine cellar and, thanks to Silent Radio, a web station, it will be possible to listen to it anywhere.

We will record the boards on different channels and they will be looped and reverberating until June the 27th, slowly fading out to reach the silence at the sunset of the same day.

During these days we want to add new layers, musical phrases, short or long melodic and not so melodic sentences, thoughts that have been collected by musicians around the world.

These contributions will represent the tireless dedication that brought a single man to travel the world and meet people to share and find support to his revolutionary ideas: a soldier becomes neutral when wounded and that medical care means not just surgery, fixing enjuries, but also emotional support.

Three days of layers like the years that took to give life to the International Red Cross.

I am asking you to contribute to this event offering some minutes of your sounds.
There will be no business made on this.
People will be free to attend to the concert of the 24th and to walk through Selva Capuzza during the four days of the installation.

The name of this event is “Selva Suona, from the Battle to the birth of the International Red Cross through the sounds of the world”.