Just a few weeks before the opening of the ZACentrale exhibition season, which for three years will be under the aegis of the Fondazione Merz in Turin, ZACentrale [music], a programme of musical events and performances will have its debut on Friday, 3 December at 8.30 pm. These are being organised by the Fondazione Merz with the Fondazione Teatro Massimo, in collaboration with the organisations that animate the Cantieri Culturali alla Zisa and local organisations.

In the same spirit as the exhibition L’altro, lo stesso (The Other, the Same), which opened on 26 October, ZACentrale [music] offers the public a dynamic experience, whose events evolve like living forms in reaction to the multiple spaces of the Cantieri Culturali alla Zisa, and in the form of sounds reflect the process of recreation with which nature continually feeds the birth of new life.

A special evening entitled “Variazioni su L’Altro, lo stesso” (Variations on The Other, the Same) will kick off the programme, based on the current exhibition at ZACentrale until March 2022.

The first protagonist of the event is WADI, a Palermo-based creative incubator supported by the Fondazione Merz that brings together research musicians specialising in different disciplines and sounds. The ensemble already made itself known in the city last year with a widespread performance at Palazzo Branciforte, which evolved into a phonographic form with the album Leiðarvísir, released in May 2021.

In active resonance with this process, the public is invited to follow a circular route in which the musical identities are transformed through interaction with the different spaces, giving rise to a continuous germination of new possibilities for enjoyment, thought and listening sensations.

The programme will be enlivened by the Californian Thollem McDonas, pianist, composer, educator and activist, with Solo per Lelio, which on this occasion inaugurates the festival of the same name organised by the historic Curva Minore association: a tribute to Lelio Giannetto, a tireless and prestigious actor in Sicilian musical life, created against a backdrop of ceaseless shared research.

The evening concludes with electronic livesets by two leading exponents: Naiupoche from Palermo, founder and sound-wizard of Almendra, and Just Dust, founder of the multidisciplinary Berlin collective SønDER.

Admission to the evening is free, subject to availability. A green pass is required.