Music From Other Minds

Program 759: Luca Francesconi and Luciano Berio

KALW Broadcast Date: October 29, 2023 | Host: Richard Friedman

On this program we go back to the years between 1986 and 1997 with two Italian composers, student and teacher: Luca Francesconi and Luciano Berio.

Francesconi, born in 1956, studied with both Karlheinz Stockhausen and Luciano Berio in the early 1980s. While working as an assistant to Berio, Francesconi was also interested in jazz and the music of other cultures, which influences much of his music.

While little of his recent music is available on commercial recordings, Francesconi’s long list of compositions include a number of works for full orchestra, as well as concertos for piano, violin, clarinet, flute, saxophone, many with electronics, and a number of vocal works, including operas and theater pieces.

Luciano Berio, who died in 2002, was one of the leading young composers to emerge after World War II, along with Karlheinz Stockhausen in Germany and Pierre Boulez and Iannis Xenakis in Paris.

Berio was an important teacher for the next generation of composers. In early 1960s, he was at Juilliard in New York City and Mills College in Oakland, where his students included Phil Lesh, later of the Grateful Dead, and Steve Reich, along with many Bay Area composers. In the second half of the program we’ll hear three of Berio’s four string quartets.

Program Audio

30-Second Spot