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The Voice in the Ancient Space

“Creating music within historic places to capture their soul and reproduce it”

The voice and singing in historical and archaeological places to travel through time through sound is the mission of the experimental project “The Voice in Ancient Spaces” curated by Maestro Marco Francini, started in 2001.

With The Voice and Musical Instruments you create improvisations in total freedom taking inspiration from the strong relationship with the places using instruments that adapt to the environments such as percussion, winds, bowed and stringed instruments, and specific elements of the place such as for example. shells, stones, water.
The performance “The Voice in Ancient Spaces” allows you to enter into a relationship with the historical, geographical and cultural depth of the origins through our “Voices from Inside” to create “Other Spaces” and improve the perceptive and vocal emission qualities.

“The Voice in Ancient Spaces” is a research that merges the artistic/performative aspect with the scientific one linked to sound.

The sound and vocal performances within historical spaces, chosen for their peculiar reverberations, are configured as an “other” enjoyment of historical and archaeological places.
The scientific research activity is carried out through acoustic measurements of spaces which allow the reverberations to be captured. The musicians will apply the captured reverberation to their instruments, thus managing to make the audience experience, with a live performance, the unique listening of each place “acoustically” transported for the occasion.
A unique way to promote historical places through sound.

The Voice in Ancient Spaces is proposed as a path of valorization and emotional enjoyment of historical and archaeological places through:

– live vocal and musical performances by Maestro Marco Francini

– audiovisual art(with vocal and musical performances in historical places) created ad hoc for the remote promotion of places of historical-artistic interest.

The research “The voice in ancient spaces” by Maestro Marco Francini is published in the Rivista Italiana di Acustica, Volume 47, No. 1 (2023) Special Issue Acoustics of Ancient Theatres.

PAPER ABSTRACT “The Voice in Ancient Spaces”” edited by Maestro Marco Francini

The International Conference “The Acoustics of Ancient Theatres” – Palazzo della Gran Guardia, Verona 6-8 July 2022, organized by the Italian Acoustics Association, TC-RBA of the European Acoustics Association (E.A.A.) and the Hellenic Institute of Acoustics (HEL.IN.A.), is included among the initiatives of the International Year of Sound #IYS.

“It is a great recognition and pride to bring the Piscina Mirabilis, the Archaeological Park of Baia, the Sibilla’s Cave and the places of Echos, the myth of Aeneas and Virgil, our art and culture, to an international audience” says Maestro Marco Francini.

[…] A sound can alter the heart rate or breathing rhythm, create a particular mood. We know the energizing effect of music, especially music rich in high frequencies, which translates into an increase in personal motivation and a heightened sense of vitality.
Singing becomes like dreaming, the means to re-establish the balance between conscious and unconscious, to “recover the entire personality of man, little by little submerged and forgotten by the progressive prevalence of consciousness over the unconscious” C. G. Jung.
Alfred Tomatis states that “human vocality is pre-verbal: before speaking, man sang”.

With the transition from the oral tradition, based on relationships, to one based on writing, vocality has been reduced within the culture of meaning, impoverished of its sound values.
“The Voice in Ancient Spaces” recovers these values ​​and thus recalls the sound baths in which we have been immersed since the beginning and the powerful choice of the singing voice which expresses all the nuances of emotions, refers to a family identity, strengthens cultural identity and sense of belonging to the community.

“The Voice in Ancient Spaces” is aimed at immersive tourism, as opposed to mass tourism. The tourist, or rather, the “immersive user”, wants to experience activities characterized by a strong personal impact and the creation of a relationship with the culture of the places. Italian cities of art are highly sought-after destinations, not only for Italians themselves but for cultural tourism from all over the world. It is therefore necessary to trigger processes aimed at this type of tourist to whom we can offer rewarding experiences.

In addition to the artistic experience that involves all the senses and creating connections on a physical, emotional, spiritual, social and intellectual level, the project “The Voice in Ancient Spaces” is a format that proposes a new way of valorising and emotionally enjoying historical places , archaeological, modern and post-modern and innovative communication of ancient vocal traditions by creating live performances, audiovisual and ad hoc audio productions.

People with motor disabilities can virtually access historical-artistic places that they otherwise would not be able to visit and, thanks to video footage, they can get excited by watching the performances.
Blind people can experience places thanks to the different sounds and reverberations that characterize the different places thanks to the audio files recorded at very high definition.

Music is a universal and transversal language and is the best ally to convey love and respect for places of historical-artistic interest. With music everything takes on another aspect, magical, particular, unique and unforgettable.

Due to its uniqueness and specific originality, the project opens the way to a new way of conceiving artistic performances no longer focused only on creativity as an end in itself, but with the aim of interacting with historical-artistic places and encouraging enjoyment emotional of themselves.