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The Rai Studio Di Fonologia (1954–83)

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The Rai Studio Di Fonologia (1954–83) ELECTRONIC MUSIC HISTORY THROUGH THE EVERYDAY: THE RAI STUDIO DI FONOLOGIA (1954–83) Joanna Evelyn Helms A dissertation submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Music. Chapel Hill 2020 Approved by: Andrea F. Bohlman Mark Evan Bonds Tim Carter Mark Katz Lee Weisert © 2020 Joanna Evelyn Helms ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Joanna Evelyn Helms: Electronic Music History through the Everyday: The RAI Studio di Fonologia (1954–83) (Under the direction of Andrea F. Bohlman) My dissertation analyzes cultural production at the Studio di Fonologia (SdF), an electronic music studio operated by Italian state media network Radiotelevisione Italiana (RAI) in Milan from 1955 to 1983. At the SdF, composers produced music and sound effects for radio dramas, television documentaries, stage and film operas, and musical works for concert audiences. Much research on the SdF centers on the art-music outputs of a select group of internationally prestigious Italian composers (namely Luciano Berio, Bruno Maderna, and Luigi Nono), offering limited windows into the social life, technological everyday, and collaborative discourse that characterized the institution during its nearly three decades of continuous operation. This preference reflects a larger trend within postwar electronic music histories to emphasize the production of a core group of intellectuals—mostly art-music composers—at a few key sites such as Paris, Cologne, and New York. Through close archival reading, I reconstruct the social conditions of work in the SdF, as well as ways in which changes in its output over time reflected changes in institutional priorities at RAI. I argue that music and sound produced at the SdF contributed to postwar prestige- building activities on the part of the Italian state, the RAI network, and the individuals who worked at the studio, situating it within local, national, and transnational social networks. I also examine the SdF’s participation in broadcasting networks through tape exchange. Finally, I ii analyze broadcast content produced at the studio to demonstrate how RAI addressed and cultivated listeners through its electronic music programming. Each chapter of my dissertation takes a different approach to institutional history as informed by the everyday, drawing from science and technology studies, sociology, and queer and feminist studies. By focusing on routine and everyday practices that structured work at the SdF, I reorient dominant historical understandings of the space based primarily on its contributions to avant- garde aesthetics or the activities of the most famous composers to work there. Instead, I foreground the ways that social interactions within and outside of the studio impacted early electronic music production by determining access to equipment, knowledge, and financial resources. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To begin, I would like to acknowledge and thank the scholars who have taken the time over the years to discuss and guide my dissertation and to deepen my understanding of their work on the SdF and twentieth-century Italian music, without which my own research would never have been possible. Among these scholars are Gianmario Borio, Delia Casadei, Maurizio Corbella, Angela Ida De Benedictis, Veniero Rizzardi, Nicola Scaldaferri, and Laura Zattra. I am also thankful to the research consultants who have been so helpful along the way, and particularly to Angela Ida De Benedictis and Angela Carone during my time at the Paul Sacher Stiftung and the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, respectively. A special word of thanks also to Joy Calico and Ryan Dohoney for their mentorship and companionship during my time at the PSS. To Maddalena Novati, a scholar and archivist in her own right but also a tireless advocate who has dedicated so much of her life to these research materials, I owe much more than I can put on paper. Maddalena, the ways in which you contributed are myriad: taking time out of so many days to hunt down a source you remembered, providing and looking after a place for me to stay in Milan, inviting me to fantastic musical events, recommending that I drink less caffeine and socialize with more people my own age (although let me be clear: your friends are an absolute joy), among many, many others. I remain in awe of the work you have done and the work you continue to do. I owe much as well to the entire NoMus community, including the soci and other friends and collaborators. I am particularly thankful to Laura Pronestì and Lorenzo Pisanello both for the invaluable resources you have created in your work with NoMus and for your kindness during my time in an unfamiliar place. iv I deeply appreciate the guidance and feedback of all of my committee members, each of whom contributed their own strengths to their reading of this dissertation. I am also thankful for their support of my project as I sought research funding, as well as their input in shaping it in its early stages. As an advisor, Andrea Bohlman has been a tireless advocate and continues to inspire me through her own intellectual curiosity and independence. This project has represented, or coincided with, a period of substantial growth and struggle for me. I would be remiss to not address the many other people who have helped me through it, no matter how near or far they may seem to my research itself. First, thanks to everyone who has helped me along the path of learning Italian as an adult, a skill that has been vital for this project. Many of the people already listed above have been extremely patient, encouraging, and willing helpers in my efforts (and again I am particularly grateful to Maddalena Novati for so many everyday moments, especially in my earlier, less confident stages of conversational ability). I was fortunate to be taught by excellent and attentive instructors at UNC, all of whom were also PhD students: Giuliano Migliore, Alessia Martini, and Massimiliano Cirulli. I greatly appreciate the enthusiasm of the other Italian learners I have encountered along the way, and especially that of my intensive-language classmates Lucia Lopes and Keiko Hikita. I am also very thankful to all of my Italian-speaking friends and colleagues who have ever taken time to puzzle over handwriting, intent, or translation with me—honestly, that probably includes nearly all of you. Fellow graduate students Alberto Napoli and Michele Segretario deserve special mentions for this kind of work. I am so grateful for the support of the communities to which I have belonged in North Carolina. To all of the staff, volunteers, and campers of Girls Rock North Carolina: knowing you and creating alongside you has changed my life in so many ways, not least of which the way I v think about power and history. You mean more than you can know to this project. To my departmental writing group (Grace Kweon, Aldwyn Hogg, Jr., Sarah Tomlinson, Alexander Marsden), I am appreciative for the space we created together in which to share our frustrations, our hopes and ideas, and our work. Similarly, I am grateful to Alessia Martini and Liz Crisenbery for being willing to share work and ideas and consistently push towards the end of our dissertations together. I have so much love for the other graduate students in my department, past and present, who have helped me build an intellectual and interpersonal home over these last several years, particularly Barkley Heuser, A. Kori Hill, Stella Zhi Zhi Li, Alberto Napoli, Megan Ross, Eduardo Sato, and Michele Segretario, in addition to the writing group cohort named above. The Ndaliko family (Chérie, Petna, Mokozi, Issé) have not only each taught me so much in each of their own ways, but have created a joyful home in which I have been honored to be a welcome guest. To the people I call family, I am equally thankful. Alan and Rebecca Marsden have welcomed me into their family with open arms, and have both been sources of support and compassion. I am much richer for knowing both of you, and I am very thankful for the parts of your professional and intellectual lives that you have shared with me. Although we met as members of a graduate cohort, Megan Ross and Joseph Nett (and baby Joanna) have become cherished chosen family. My brother, J.T., has been there every step of the way in this degree— in some senses quite literally, as we’ve lived together twice during my time in Chapel Hill. I value our relationship deeply and feel truly fortunate to have you as a sibling. Above all I am always grateful to my mother, Roseann, for instilling and nurturing such a love of reading, learning, and music in me from a young age, and for never questioning where those things have taken me in my adult life. No words can do justice to the support you have given me as a parent. vi Finally, to Alex: you deserve credit for moving between all of these roles and more. Your curiosity, acuity, emotional intelligence, and humor have helped to push me forward every day. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES............................................................................................. xii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ...................................................................................................... xiv CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................1 A Brief Overview of the Studio di Fonologia ......................................................................7
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