BIO

Teresa Rossi in Rampazzi
(Vicenza, 31 ottobre 1914 - Bassano del Grappa, 16 dicembre 2001)

Teresa Rampazzi born Rossi (Vicenza, 1914, 31 October - Bassano del Grappa, 2001, 16 December) She started studying music with a local teacher (Tonolli), but her father soon sent her to the Milan conservatory where she studied with Arrigo Pedrollo. Here she got to know Bruno Maderna and began to receive friends in her living room, people who would become important in the contemporary music scene: Franco Donatoni, René Laibowitz, Severino Gazzelloni and Bruno Maderna.

In 1952 and 1954, Teresa Rampazzi attended the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik in Darmstadt and listened to electronic experiments made by Eimert. She had understood that that was the only way to completely reject tonal music. In 1956 Teresa began to play with the Bartók Trio (Elio Peruzzi: clarinet, Edda Pitton: violin, Teresa Rampazzi: piano), and decided to promote the Avant-Garde music by Anton Webern and Alban Berg. But her most noteworthy concert is the one set in 1959 with John Cage, H.K. Metzger and S. Bussotti.

Combined with her fascination with electronic sounds, Cage's Informal music made Teresa see the possibility to leave behind tonal music and the traditional form 'start-development-end'. She sold her piano in curious circumstances: a legend tells that she demolished it during a performance with Cage. In 1964 she met the visual artist Ennio Chiggio, member of the famous Gruppo Enne, and founded the N.P.S. Group (Nuove Proposte Sonore). They worked with analog tools and became one of the most famous electronic studios in Italy, together with the S 2 FM by Pietro Grossi and the SMET by Enore Zaffiri.

In 1968, Chiggio preferred to leave the group. Members' ideas started to diverge. Teresa's musical instinct led her to aspire to greater artistic freedom, which was in contrast with Chiggio's motivation. During this second period of the N.P.S., Teresa opened her laboratory to young engineers (among them Alvise Vidolin and Giovanni De Poli) and musicians and started a new epoch dedicating herself to teaching.

In October 1972 the Conservatory of music "Pollini" of Padova instituted a new electronic music course and assigned it to Teresa (this was the third course in Italy). Meanwile, in the beginning of the '70s, De Poli, Vidolin and Graziano Tisato, monitored by Giovanni Battista Debiasi, and later the composer James Dashow began an important investigation in sound synthesis. In 1979 they institutionalized this association and gave it the name CSC - Centro di Sonologia Computazionale. Right through this period (in 1974 she was 60 years old), Teresa taught to her students analogue techniques during her lessons at conserva-tory, whereas at CSC she collaborated with them on the same level in producing computer music. Her enthusiasm in learning new digital techniques was remarkable.

Her first computer music piece, which is also the first piece realized by the group together with a piece by James Dashow, was titled With the light pen (1976). This piece obtained a special mention at the International Electroacoustic Music Competition in Bourges (France). She realized many other pieces, among them Fluxus, (Disk LP EDI-PAN PRC S 20-16, Rome, 1984), based on a fragment by Heraclitus; in 1980 Atmen noch which won the Second Price at VIII Concours Internationale de Musique Electroaoustique de Bourges (1980, first price not awarded).

In 1984 her husband died and this experience sharpened even more her refusal towards the past. She sold her home, gave all her musical property to conservatory and musical institutions (University of Padova's Music Department) and decided to retire. She first went to Assisi for some years and later she settled in Bassano (Vicenza) where she lived until December 2001. Here she created a little home studio where she continued to compose ad listen to music. She also collaborated with dance companies. Her body lies in Asiago's cemetery for want of her daughter Francesca.