Walter Prati

Since 1986, Walter Prati has combined composition with performance on electronic instruments. His work centres on the interaction between traditional instruments and electronics, using a variety of live-processing techniques.

In an early collaboration with the Centro di Sonologia Computazionale in Padua, he used the 4i system for real-time synthesis and sound processing to create Aquam flare in media labia tua, for trombone and live electronics, premiered by Giancarlo Schiaffini, and Approximate Combinations of Indefinite Time, for soprano saxophone, trombone and live electronics, performed by Evan Parker and Schiaffini.

During the 1990s he worked with the IRIS research centre, part of Farfisa–Bontempi and directed by Giuseppe Di Giugno, composing works for its MARS workstation. L’isola in un’oasi, for flute and electronics, was performed at Milan’s Teatro Studio by Anna Maria Morini. His collaboration with saxophonist Evan Parker led to the Electro-Acoustic Ensemble, an improvising group using electronics that toured extensively and recorded for ECM.

As an electronic performer, Prati has collaborated with composers including Ivan Fedele, Sandro Gorli, Ludovico Einaudi, Paolo Aralla and Giorgio Magnanensi. With Bruno Canino and Antonio Ballista, he prepared a version of Stockhausen’s Mantra in which the original analogue electronics were reconstructed digitally, performing it at festivals in Milan, Rome, Turin, Naples and Bolzano. He taught electronic-music courses at the Accademia Chigiana in 1995 and 1996.

From 2000 to 2010, his activity included further Electro-Acoustic Ensemble tours and works such as Lumen 3, with texts by Giuliano Corti, a multisensory work performed in complete darkness in European theatres; Gli Angeli sopra Duino, based on Rilke’s Duino Elegies in Corti’s translation and commissioned by the MiTo Festival; and the multimedia performance Sound, Architecture, Image, created for the 150th anniversary of the Politecnico di Milano and presented at its Bovisa campus.

His collaborations with Robert Wyatt include three remixed versions of The Duchess on Postcards from Italy. With Sonic Youth guitarist Thurston Moore, he recorded The Promise and performed concerts in Italy. His Da Vinci recordings include an electronic interpretation of Stockhausen’s Tierkreis with Ricciarda Belgiojoso and Community Garden with composer and artist Alvin Curran. His teaching career has included electroacoustic composition at the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in Como.