This week I had the joy of taking part in the fifth edition of Composing Nature, a composition project that brings music to the mountains of Trentino-Alto Adige. The festival is organized by Taverna Maderna and the Conservatorio Cesare Pollini of Padua in collaboration with SaMPL, the Municipality of Lavarone, and the Alpe Cimbra tourist board. It was founded in 2021 on the initiative of composer Giovanni Bonato, professor of composition in Padua.
The residency took place in Lavarone, a beautiful mountain town near Trento. Forests, lakes, and quiet paths surrounded us. This year the focus was on percussion and, for the first time, electronics.
The atmosphere was vibrant and full of exchange. Nine composers from the USA, Poland, Taiwan, Canada, and Italy came together, each bringing their own background and perspective. Some of us wrote for percussion quartet, others for percussion and electronics, with several weaving in natural sounds recorded during walks in the surrounding landscape.
I arrived with a work still in progress, yet the energy of the place and the people quickly carried me forward. Within a few days my piece was ready for the concert—though I even managed to catch the flu along the way.
My composition, Skimming Beats, is for percussion quartet. I think of it as a dance of speed and interconnection. It begins with a restless flow of notes that never quite settles. Rhythm becomes something fluid—skimming across the surface like pebbles on water, catching for a moment, then slipping away again. The four percussionists move between sharp attacks and whispering textures: from the dry snap of woodblocks to the grainy hum of a superball mallet sliding across a bass drum. In this shifting play of touch, sound turns into a rush of energy always on the verge of transforming—just like nature itself. The music is virtuosic, but it also knows how to pause, balancing control and abandon. What remains is not a strict measure of time, but a fragile, breathless motion—an invitation to hear rhythm as something alive.
On 28 August the project culminated in a concert at the Centro Congressi of Lavarone. At the entrance, visitors encountered Broken Equilibrium, an interactive sound installation created by Caterina Paolini, which had been placed there a few days earlier. The concert itself was performed by the Art Percussion Ensemble, directed by Massimo Pastore, together with the electronic musicians from the SaMPL laboratory of the Conservatorio Cesare Pollini of Padua (supervised by Julian Scordato).
The evening brought together all of our works, each one offering a different take on the relationship between music, nature, technology, and sound. The quality of the works was inspiring. For me, it was a moment of both sharing and discovery—the end of an intense week of collaboration, and the beginning of new ideas that continue to resonate with me.
I’m deeply grateful to my fellow participants—Yu Ting Chang, Lorenzo De Angeli, Evan Fein, Tom Lachance, Lorenzo Scandale, Marco Sebastianelli, Arturo Susani, and Jacob Tesarczyk—for their music, ideas, and friendship throughout the week. A very special thank-you goes to Leonardo Mezzalira, whose dedication made the whole festival possible, and to the three professors from Padua—Giovanni Bonato, Massimo Pastore, and Julian Scordato—for their guidance, generosity, and inspiration.
Below are a few photos from Lavarone and its surroundings, some taken by me, others by fellow participants. The concert programme is available in Italian and English.
