Soror Mystica: Performing the Sonic Alchemy of Fernando Grillo

This project engages with Italian double bassist and composer Fernando Grillo’s (1945–2013) uniquely challenging choreographic compositions from several perspectives. Exploring the different ways Grillo’s performances of his own music were documented and preserved, I suggest, impacts conceptions of how these works are to be communicated to audiences. I construct methodologies that point to new ways to approach, analyse, and perform Grillo’s complex compositions, which integrate musical and physical gesture. This project concerned itself with examining the significance of Grillo’s work, and the ways his works may be interpreted and performed in the present day.