La Sera di Benevento Barry D. Truax

La Sera di Benevento (or “Afternoon in Benevento”) is a soundscape composition based on environmental sounds from the town of Benevento, Italy situated near Napoli. In particular, I imagined a hot, drowsy afternoon where the sounds of cicadas, a fountain and the local churchbell lull the listener into a reverie where these sounds mingle with a half-remembered lyric poem by the 14th century poet Giovanni Boccaccio (as read by Giorgio Magnanensi). The afternoon is framed by sequences recorded at the local train station where the arrival of a train is announced and leads the listener’s “train of thought” into the afternoon’s daydream.

  • Year of composition: 1999
  • Genre: Soundscape
  • Format: Fixed media
  • Software used: PODX system for sound synthesis and composition.
  • Duration of the submitted work: 10:00
  • Publisher: Cambridge Street Publishing
  • Premiere: June 13, 2000, International Festival of Electroacoustic Music, Bourges, France
  • Disc publication: La Sera di Benevento is available on the Cambridge Street Records CD Islands, CSR-CD 0101

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