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Crown Quartet: A Natural Contract | Sound Art in Four Countries

We are pleased to announce the new sound art project A Natural Contract by the Crown Quartet. The  project is supported by the festival Resonances IV - NaturArchy:  Towards  a  Natural  Contract. 

To know the world is to breathe, to breathe is to savour the world. 

An interspecies dialogue where you find yourself human, vegetable, animal and mineral,  in the name of fusion. A world composed not of objects but of streams that penetrate us and that we penetrate, of waves of varying intensity and in perpetual movement. We can no longer perceive the world as a simple collection of objects or as a universal space containing all things, but as the site of a veritable metaphysical mixture. Towards a “multispecies storytelling” (Donna Haraway).

A Natural Contract is created for Resonances IV and it crosses borders through the simultaneity of music and language in a musical exchange between four different European countries. The four countries in the Alps-Adriatic-Region have been barely accessible due to the Corona pandemic. The idea of this live sound art concert at a distance is to invoke notions of memory, a discourse, a call to the most basic elements of humanity and  society.

A Natural Contract is a new project for the Crown Quartet, conceived and directed by Usmaradio. Production support by JRC SciArt.

The four artists will be connected via internet stream from their studios in Austria, Hungary, Italy and Croatia in an acoustic exchange consisting of music, language and sound. The piece revolves around questioning acoustic materials, their manipulation, meaning, application and aesthetics.

Usmaradio at the Summer School

NaturArchy Podcast

Roberto Paci Dalò playing the oboe at JRC with EU flag behind him
Musical instruments and sound equipment

Images from Crown Quartet's performance at JRC Ispra on 23/06/2022


Crown Quartet

Croatia: Zahra Mani  - double bass, bass & electric guitars, field recordings, live electronics

Italy: Roberto Paci Dalò - clarinet, bass clarinet, voice, live electronics

Hungary: Tibor Szemző - voice, bass flute, flute

Austria: Mia Zabelka - electric violin, vocals, live electronics

Station Manager and sound engineer: Alessandro Renzi

Crown Quartet: A Natural Contract | Sound Art in Four Countries