INTRODUCTION

Who we are

"In an objectively difficult framework like that of Milan today, the initiative of promoting encounters between music, painting and sculpture takes us back to the origins of Milanese culture, when artists, musicians and writers used to meet, and they created that entity which is always difficult to measure and yet is precise, that is defined as a cultural climate. We will try to begin again from here."

--Flavio Caroli

A few years after its intrepid foundation, Novurgìa is updating its Internet site, demonstrating that is proceeding with the schedule outlined by it vocation and its project of stimulating and divulging contemporary arts.

Novurgìa organises concerts of new and contemporary music and meetings with painters, sculptors, poets, designers, video artists, etc. It also offers professional and preparatory courses and publicises competitions.

Founded in the spring of 1994 and endowed with a mischievously courtly name, Novurgìa - a ‘non-profit organisation’ - arised out of meetings between artists of various kinds and people involved in culture, which only became systematic after it was established that there was a common feeling. Its interdisciplinary project points to Novurgìa as the only Milanese association endeavouring to overcome a singular and reciprocal apartheid in the arts, the beneficiaries of which are unknown but whose woeful results are to be seen. One need only think of the prevalent regressive tendency (making a fetish of tradition) of the average music listener compared to the greater openness towards the present of visual arts appreciaters. We therefore want to pursue the intersection of different publics which normally tend to exclude one another, in the prospective of wider and more heterogeneous streams of appreciaters.

Novurgìa flees from the idea of engaging in music that is uprooted and torn away from the other arts and from culture in general. Indeed, the proposal elaborated by the association consists of overcoming the sterile separation of the arts. The theatre foyer, the concert hall (at times visual art works are exhibited in place of the concert), or the artists workroom (at other times the concert-going public moves into the author’s studio) have shown themselves to be ideal places in which to develop, through analogy, the initial musical experience. Getting to know the work of the artist, or that of the poet - carried out with no accademic partitions but with the energy and weight of an initiation wrought by the words of the author himself - has allowed for an advantageous partnership between musical appreciation and appreciation of the other arts. The interdisciplinary nature of Novurgìa’s cultural offering thus arises from the conviction that only through moving past inadequate rites, sterile separations and artful fences might we be able to attain a better understanding of music. Taking away debatable specialisations.

In arranging its musical and non-musical programs, Novurgìa has constantly been inspired by the opportunity (also sanctioned by statutary dispositions) to promote a better understanding of new music and above all of contemporary production. It does so without prejudices regaurding the present day plethora of styles and philosophies of composition, towards which the association boasts the greatest openness. The choices have always favoured only the quality of invention and the adequateness of the craftsmanship. These choices do not arise so much from the presumption to be able to save listeners from some awful work of the present, so much as the impertinent invitation to not trust overly in established opinions and values: according to which one should have a certain idea or ideology about what is beautiful and what is good, rather than a certain intuition.

Driven by its vocation, Novurgìa couldn’t help but give itself an autonomous style and project. This was, above all, to observe the changing fortunes of art from different points of view, from which it might be possible to descern what from a single perspective was invisible, but without foolish ambitions of sanctifying or desanctifying. A project in which more attention was given to artistic craftsmanship and creativity than to the metaphisics of ideological values where we can no longer find certainties. In Novurgìa’s work one can see an evened-out participation between promising youths and celebrated professionals, an equilibrium that is noticeable both in the sphere of performers and in that of the composers.

The composers of the present and of the recent past are virtually unknown, amongst whom only a few have been visited by fame and concensus, and not always the best ones at that. We are unconvinced by the widely diffused opinion which would have us believe that success and quality always coincide, just ase we are convinced that failure does not necessarily coincide with quality. Novurgìa is determined to recover quality wherever it may be, and not without some mischief.

When Novurgìa’s bold designs are realised it will finally have the priviledge of being able to cite and thank all those who are making its growth possible.

Novurgìa asks private individuals and public institutions to help it fulfil its task. The association prefers to give those who attend its performances a membership card, rather than a simple season pass, so that they participate.