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Giancarlo Siciliano

Born in Montreal in 1961, Giancarlo Siciliano is an independent scholar whose work seeks new articulations between the disciplinary fields of ethnomusicology, philosophy, and the politics of cultural transfer and translation.

After eight years’ schooling and initiation to the British “art-rock” aesthetic within the lively context of Italian radical politics as embodied in Area's musical pursuits throughout the first half of the seventies, he moved to Toronto in October 1975, attended three different high-schools including the independent Subway academy for one summer session before applying at York University where he earned his B.A. degree in music in 1986. The following step was electing the University of Montreal as the best possible interdisciplinary Canadian institution offering the possibility of pursuing studies in musicology and comparative literature. Giancarlo completed his M.A. degree in musicology in 1995.

As a guitarist, he has been deeply marked by Wes Montgomery, George Benson, Larry Carlton, John McLaughlin, John Scofield, John Abercrombie, Pat Metheny and Bill Frisell but, more deeply still, by acoustic masters such as Egberto Gismonti, Baden Powell and Ralph Towner. Toronto guitarists Guido Luciani, Paul Levant, Roy Patterson, Geoff Young, Brian Katz and William Beauvais played a major role in Giancarlo's exploration of jazz and its numerous hybrid extensions. Throughout those years, and especially between 1983 and 1987, Giancarlo's focus was set on performing in Toronto within duo, trio and quartet settings with Ron Allen, Ernie Tollar, Philip May and Alfred Gertler as well as with Brazilian singer/songwriter Rafael Lima.

Between the years 1987 and 1991, which he spent in Montreal, Giancarlo worked briefly with a jazz trio but chose radically different artistic paths leading towards multimedia performances and a philosophical alliance, based on a mutual interest in Deleuze and Guattari, with Philippe Côté, member of activist/conceptual art ensemble La .(Société de Conservation du Présent).

In 1991, Giancarlo Siciliano moved to France where, thanks to Roland Paulin's initiative, he was granted the opportunity to perform music for dance improvisation with various musicians including Elisa Trocmé and Roger Greipl. There again, although he continued cultivating it, he moved away from jazz performance in order to develop his ever-growing interest in musical theatre through the work of such composers as Georges Aperghis (whom he studied with in 1995) and Heiner Goebbels. Then he got involved in composing and performing music at amateur youth theatre festivals in France, at the Rote Fabrik in Zürich with Roger Greipl and in Paris in the context of Carol Fonteneau’s body art performances.

In terms of theoretical pursuits, Giancarlo Siciliano's interests range from sociology to semiotics and his involvement in ethnomusicology was sparkled by John Blacking’s How Musical Is Man?, Steve Reich’s “Music as Gradual Process” and Christopher Small’s Music–Society-Education – seminal texts which Robert Witmer helped him discover. Interest in this area declined for a while but was quickly rekindled upon completion of his Master’s degree in 1995 thanks to Ramon Pelinski. By that time he had met ethnomusicologist Peter Crowe whom he collaborated with as a member of the committee for the European Seminar in Ethnomusicology in 1996. That same year Giancarlo Siciliano began pursuing further studies in musicology, philosophy and social anthropology of jazz at the E.H.E.S.S. in Paris where he was granted an opportunity to lecture on Paul Berliner and jazz improvisation. But it was not until 2004 that he was called upon to teach ethnomusicology and popular music studies at the University of Strasbourg over a four-year period. Between September and December 2012, Giancarlo graced this institution with his presence through an English-language course specifically designed for students in the visual arts department.

Giancarlo Siciliano has recently set many of his current activities under the aegis of independent research and translation of a number of articles by such ethnomusicologists as Steven Feld, Stephen Blum, Martin Stokes, and John Rink.

Other musical pursuits, in collaboration with Swiss saxophonist Roger Greipl, include a series of electro-jazz compositions based on sampled sound sources blending Brazilian and Euro-American styles.

Pedagogic projects include ongoing initiatives focused on implementing guitar teaching techniques drawn from Canadian performers/educators William Beauvais, Brian Katz and David Elliott with emphasis on Brazilian composers/performers Luiz Bonfa, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Baden Powell, and Egberto Gismonti.

SELECTED CONCERTOGRAPHY

(under construction)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

(forthcoming) : From Aesthetic Object To Event: Afro-Brazilian Musicality as Embodiment of Thinking-in-Action

(forthcoming) : De l'objet esthétique à la processualité événementielle. Prolégomènes à une ethnophilosophie des musiques afro-américaines.

(forthcoming) : « Ce que musiquer veut dire : l'Occident musical et la quête d'un paradigme ethnophilosophique » Dissonance, no. ?, Bâle.

2012 « Postmodernité ou Spätzeit : notes sur la puissance anamnésique du musical », Dissonance no. 119, Bâle.

2012 Review of Laurent Aubert's La musique de l'Autre. Nouveaux défis à l'ethnomusicologie, Dissonance no. 117, Bâle.

2011 Review of Filigrane no. 12 « Musique et lieu », Dissonance no. 112, Bâle.

2011 « Le champ jazzistique et ses extensions : réflexions autour de la mondialisation et de l'hyperindustrialisation » in Solomos, M. & Bouët, Jacques (eds.), Musique et globalisation...

2010 « What Is This Thing Called Jazz? » Dissonance no. 115?, Bâle.

2009 « Du transnational en musique : vers une musicologie de la contemporanéité proche », Dissonance no. 108, Bâle.

2009 Review of Il suono in figure. Pensare con la musica by Giorgio Rimondi, Filigrane no. 9.

2008 Review of Le jazz et l'Occident by Christian Béthune, Filigrane no. 8.

2008 « Frayages vers une économie poétique au singulier pluriel. Le théâtre musical de Heiner Goebbels », Dissonance no. 102.

TRANSLATIONS

From Italian to French

(forthcoming) : Paolo Mottana, Petit manuel de contre-éducation; Le regard imaginal.

2008 Alessandro Arbo, « Petite histoire du bruit de Rousseau à Grisey », Filigrane, no. 7.

From English to French

2009 John Rink, « Time and Again: Performing Musical Narrative ».

2004 Stephen Blum, “L'acte musical : éléments d'analyse”; Martin Stokes, “Musique, identité et ''ville-monde”. Perspectives critiques”; Steven Feld, “Une si douce berceuse pour la World Music ”, French translations, L’Homme no. 171-172 (Paris, Seuil/E.H.E.S.S).