About Mirage's original Music (E.

Blandamura)

Mirage takes place in a non specified place and time, without giving any context or explanation for the
facts that are about to happen: the Characters just find themselves in a situation and are inevitably
forced to cope with it, for no escape seem to be within reach.

If we put aside for a moment the four motives which describe the four figures of the play, I think that
the main musical Leitmotiv is the very first sound which is played at the beginning in Introduction:
The pattern (a descending seventh chord arpeggio) starts on cello and will appear more and more
during the development of the play, representing the time flow and how diverse its experience can be.
These differences are clearly shown also in Mirage's environment during the play: we do not know how
much time the Characters spent in the room, nor we had notice of a switch between day and night. The
four Characters endure the staticity of their prison, in a restless research for insight. As the tension
builds seemed natural to me to make this Leitmotiv become louder and more chaotic as it is presented
in Metroid: thirdtime, where the whole ensemble starts a a serial chain; the Leitmotiv is presented in
the form of variable patterns of 4 to 7 notes and a chant for freedom starts from the Clarinet, echoed by
the bass and eventually taken by piano, which finally allows the tension and the chaos to resolve in the
last chord that concludes the journey of the characters and states the end of a cycle.

As for the single characters' introductions and the duets, I always started my work from the movement
and did my best to create a music tailored to the qualities of the individual performers: rather than
expressing myself through the music, I wanted to give the dancers a background layer, in which they
could feel comfortable and able to let their dancing speak the best.
Sebastian's manipulative tendencies and his ego have been put into a tango; the introvert Lukasz
received a slightly melanchonic duo for cello and piano; The forced happiness and the conservative
attitude of Nadja came together with some outdated old school jazz and an impudent feature of the
piano;
Mara's inner world came in the form of a short folk song for piano and double bass, representing her
simplicity and genuity underneath the mist she claims to be surrounded by.

About the Musical Direction

All Mirage's musical performers are trained in both classical and modern music: this allowed a
research for fine, subtle colors which helped me as a composer having extremely detailed realizations
of the pictures in my head, as well as space for freedom and personality of the executors; all the
players had the chance to improvise within the written music and had unaccompained solo moments in
which my direction has been as little as possible.
As a jazz musician I highly respect the singularities of my colleagues: it seemed logical to me
also in a more traditional scenario, where most of the music was written down, to give room anyway to
my performers to reshape my musical ideas as they felt comfortable with; this means not only that each
performance of Mirage can be different to a certain extent (especially with different performers), it also
creates a more natural and organic musical performance and - perhaps- a more vivid and vibrant
enviroment for the dancers to work within.

About the non original music

The musical choices for the non original music are the result of a confrontation between me and Nadja
Puttner, Artistic Director of the project: some of the music has been chosen as inspiration for building
choreographies as well as some has been searched and found as the perfect fit for what Nadja, Lukasz,
Sebastian and Mara already did. I tried to keep the arrangements essential to give justice to the original
thoughts of the composers.