Vinicius Giusti was born in Pato Branco, Paraná, Brazil. Giusti was a member of a family of musicians and his father was a well-known keyboard player in the ’70s. Giusti began piano lessons at 5 years old. While studying in the technical school of electronics, he also composed songs and commercial music in his father’s recording studio. In 2000, he moved to Curitiba and started his studies in composition in the School of Music and Fine Arts of Paraná (EMBAP) with Maurício Dottori. During that period, he founded the ensemble entreCompositores, a group of composers that aim, through collaborative work, to promote contemporary music in Curitiba. With the ensemble entreCompositores, Vinicius directed ensemble entreCompositores first concert – presented in Teatro da Reitoria in 2003; project (N) – presented during Oficina de Música de Curitiba in 2004; Solos, duos e dipositivos eletrônicos in 2004 and De Mar a Mar, in 2006, presented in the Série Intermezzo – Música em Pauta.
Following his professor of composition, in 2004, he transferred his studies to the Federal University of Paraná and concluded his first bachelor’s in music production in 2006. His thesis “The contrast in the perception of the sonorous elements in the piece ‘All that you know not to be is utterly real’ by Maurício Dottori” received a score of 95 out of 100.
After this, he worked as an audio engineer at Paulo Freire Television, part of an educational project of the State of Paraná, where he was responsible for the television channel’s music and audio recordings in the audiovisual production.
In 2007, he moved abroad to continue his studies. In the Conservatorio G. B. Martini di Bologna, Italy, he studied electronic music composition with Lelio Cammilleri and Franceso Giomi. In that period, he composed his first acousmatic music to be diffused in 8 loudspeakers: Que som è esse? (2009), followed by Memórias - for piano and tape in 8 ch. (2010), and Flânuer, a piece of acousmatic music for 8 ch., composed during an Erasmus Program conducted in the HFK-Bremen.
Que som è esse? was presented on multiple occasions: Sight, Sound, Space and Play conference 2014 in the De Montfort University, – Leicester; 16° Acousmatique International Festival, LÉspace du Son – Brussels; ANimALOGICA 2 Bologna Synth Meeting – Bologna; in the Musikwissenschaftliches Institut de Universität zu Köln Musik der Gegenwart – Cologne; and La terra Fertile – Conservatorio di musica “Luigi Canepa” – Sassari. The piece was awarded in the 18ª Bienal de Música Brasileira Contemporânea – Rio de Janeiro. The piece focuses on the difference between spaces designed by the objects in movement and those traced out in memory. It explores how the trajectory of percussive sounds, in an open space, can be manipulated until it becomes a flash, a sign of light in the minds of the listeners. Sounds are slightly enhanced, in order to maintain a strong connection with the source.
In Flânuer the listener experiences two sonorous situations: one that recalls a real or imaginary sound world; and another in which the listener perceives a microscopic world spinning and jumping around them with magnifying lenses. The interactions of these two situations are presented as an imagined tale, where the listener wanders among these sound worlds in their own way, as a “Flânuer” (wanderer). This piece also had a long journey; it was played in the Institute of Sonology, Koninklijk Conservatorium - The Hague; Folkwang, Universität der Künste - Essen; 43. Elektronisches Konzert, HfK – Bremen; next_generation 5.0 akusmatik – Karlsruhe, where the piece was played in the original GRM Acousmonium sound diffusion system; and in the Sonorities Festival - fractured narratives 2015 in the amazing structure of the Sonic Lab at the Sonic Arts Research Centre – Belfast.
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During this period, Giusti also collaborated with Sara Lenzi on three sound installation projects, Stanze Sonore and La voce delle cose in Reggio Emilia and Voce di Morra in Verona during 2009.
Giusti completed his studies in Bologna and received the maximum vote, 110 cum laude, with the degree thesis in Musica Elettronica: Space, Sound and Electronic Music.
In the winter semester of 2010/2011, he started his studies in composition at the University of Arts in Bremen. Kilian Schwoon was his professor in electronic music and Younghi Pagh-Paan and Jörg Birkenkötter for instrumental compositions. In Bremen, he composed a total of 9 pieces: Flâneur – acousmatic music in 8 ch. (2011); Sopro em Silêncio – Silbermann organ and two voices (2011); Sensos – for Orchestra (2011); um bocado – acousmatic music (2011); Estudo Aberto – Flute, Clarinet, Violin und Violoncello (2011); Kolongala elettronica – Percussion and live-tape in 8 ch. (2012); Eco di Kolongala – acousmatic music in 8 ch. (2012); Ressoa – for prepared piano and live-electronics in 8 ch. (2012/2013) and (Des)encontros – for ensemble, improvised percussion, live-electronics in 8 ch. and video.
He also took part in two extra projects that achieved prominent results at the University. The first was the composition of the music for the HfK-Video: Film-Impressionen der Hochschule für Künste Bremen. The second was In Between – Mode Medien Music, in which he and Ephraim Wegner headed the electronic music part of the project. As a result, two pieces originally composed for the occasion, kolongala elettronica and Eco di kolongala, were included in the program.
Even while living in Europe, Giusti continued working with the ensemble entreCompositores in Brazil. The group headed a festival of new music in Curitiba called Music Today Biennale. The first edition was in 2011, when he curated a concert of electronic music and invited Professors from conservatories around Europe and their students to present their acousmatic music in Curitiba. Moreover, in 2011 the Music Today Biennale held a total of 10 concerts with different ensembles and music from 62 composers from 18 different countries. In 2013, 12 concerts were performed in the Festival. A total of 60 different pieces were presented - historical pieces of the 20th century, as well as premieres and improvisations. Additionally, the festival embraced a composition competition for the orchestra of the state of Paranà (OSP), a workshop for composers with Marcos Balter and the Platypus ensemble from Vienna, not to mention several concerts outside of the traditional concert halls of the city.
Giusti was also a co-founder of the Myotis Kollektiv. The group aims to perform projects in the field of new music, including improvisation and electronic music. It also supports and encourages composers to work in direct collaboration with musicians. Currently, the group comprises Johannes von Buttlar – percussion, Johannes Haase – violin and electronics, Lukas Rickli – piano, and Giusti performing the live electronics.
His two last compositions are also influenced by the integration of improvisation and live-electronics.
His two last compositions at Hochschule für Künste – Bremen were:
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Ressoa – for piano and live electronics in 8 ch., composed with prepared sounds, applying different cymbals in contact with the piano strings. Eight prepared sounds were composed, which were amplified, transformed and diffused in the hall space through the live electronics. The pianist presents single ones or a combination of sounds in a continued and improvised way. The pianist Lydia Hammerbacher played the premiere of the piece in her concert diploma. Moreover, the piece was part of the PGNM Festival in 2014, one of the most important festivals of new music in North Germany.
(Des)encontros – for an ensemble, improvised percussion, live electronics in 8 ch. and video, was composed for his diploma concert in composition at the HFK-Bremen. The piece is inspired by Georg Simmel’s book “Die Großstädte und das Geisteleben”, as well as his personal observations, experimentations and comparisons of life in South Brazil and North Germany. In this piece, two kinds of sections co-exist, one characterised by improvised freedom for the musicians, and the other by a constrained rhythmic musical structure. As time goes on, this difference became increasingly tenuous and the sections undergo a melding process. The piece was composed in substantial collaboration with each musician. The sound material to compose the electronic tape and live electronics was created in improvisation sessions, where the interaction between the personal sound repertoire of each musician and the live electronics was recorded in audio and video.
Giusti completed his studies in Bremen in September 2014, when he presented a colloquium about his piece (Des)encontros for a board of examiners, along with a degree thesis named “The musical time in “Partiels” – Gérard Grisey”.
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In 2016, he started his Ph.D., Improvisation and everyday life as creative tools for composing music for performers, electronics and video, at the Brunel University London, supervised by Jennifer Walshe and John Croft and supported by CAPES foundation, Ministry of Education of Brazil.
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In this period, Giusti composed Abirú - Acousmatic music for 8-channel sound surround. The sound material used for this composition was based on field recordings made by Igor Germano Pavezi. The material was created by exploring the sonic environment surrounding his home and was recorded using a portable recorder and two microphones, with freedom of movement in any direction. The piece develops a relationship between two different sonic worlds. The first recreates the same listening environment that surrounds Pavezi’s home for an audience, while the second represents what was happening in Pavezi's mind throughout the process, as he discovered the variety of sound realities that surround his home.
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A second piece from this period is Distractfold Piece - for Rocío Bolaños, Emma Richards, Linda Jankowska, Alice Purton, 8ch. surround sound electronic music and video. Composed for the Distractfold ensemble in the above formation, it integrated a pinch of improvisation, self-video recordings, relational aesthetics and theatrical elements. The performance was presented at the Brunel University London on the 10th May 2017.
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Ein Portrait in vier was developed in collaboration with Platypus Ensemble from Vienna, and performed by Kaoko Amano, Theresia Schmidinger, Marianna Oczkowska and Frederik Neyrick. The piece was composed from a base of field videos and audio recordings made by the musicians in their everyday lives and their professional lives as musicians in different performances around the world. They were guided by an instructive score to perform the recordings, in order to capture similar events in their lives. The result of this collaboration was a piece for the ensemble, live electronics and video that was presented at Echoraum in Vienna in June 2018, bringing together their life events from different places and their physical presences, to perform the composition.
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Another project with Trio SurPlus and musicians from Freiburg/Karlsruhe/Frankfurt was also performed in June of the same year, 2018, at the E-werk Freiburg. Ein Portrait in drei was performed by Christian Kemper, Daniel Lorenzo and Olaf Tzschoppe. Although similarly named to the piece performed by Platypus, the two pieces followed different composition approaches to develop the sound material. With Trio SurPlus, each of the musicians welcomed Giusti in their home cities for some days, in order to perform improvisation sessions, where their individual sound expertise and sound repertoire could interact with Giusti’s live electronics setup. Collectively, they recorded sounds and images to collect audiovisual material for the posterior montage of the piece. Moreover, video recordings and interviews with the performers were recorded in their home cities and integrated in the source material for the composition of the piece.
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Christoph Ogiermann, with his unique and respected improvisation experience and strongly defined sound identity, was the next collaborator to endorse composing a performance in collaboration with Giusti. The interaction results of the two composers was performed in a concert at AckerStadtPalast - Berlin in October 2018. In HADT_SPAZIO, the feedback source was connected to a live electronic real-time system of fragmentation, temporal change and spatialisation, leading to a "forest" with screaming "animals" and thundering masses of sounds. The collaborative work was developed during one week of intense work in Berlin and some weeks of prior audiovisual recordings in Bremen. In this case, the interaction happened on another level, as both collaborators were also composers.
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Tra due was the last of Giusti’s compositions performed in 2019. There were two performances, one in Bremen at Schwankhalle and one in Berlin at AckerStadtPalast. The piece was composed in collaboration with Johannes von Buttlar. In the first phase of the composition process, concentrated energy was dedicated to collecting and generating sound material closely related with the everyday life of the interpreter. The second phase was dedicated to the montage of the formal and structural composition of the live performance. A central parameter of the piece was to bring Johannes’s sound identity and personality to the eyes and ears of the audience. This was juxtaposed with different facets of his professional and individual life on the stage, as he reacted impromptu to the live electronic sound constellations.
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In September of 2020, Giusti submitted his thesis and the audiovisual documentation of the concerts of his compositions, after his recent years of work at Brunel University London. His viva thesis defence will took place on the 20th November 2020.
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