Butterfly Effect

SEMINÁRIO PERMANENTE DO GRUPO DE INVESTIGAÇÃO CRIAÇÃO, PERFORMANCE E INVESTIGAÇÃO ARTÍSTICA

14.05.2026 | 18h | Auditório do CCCI | Departamento de Comunicação e Arte da Universidade de Aveiro

15.05.2026 | 11h – 13h | | Estúdio CIME | Departamento de Comunicação e Arte da Universidade de Aveiro

Entrada livre e presencial.

Programa

14 de maio

18h | Auditório do CCCI | DeCA UA

Concerto // Butterfly Effect

Artistas // Cesare Saldicco (Conservatorio di Musica “Giuseppe Verdi”) & Valeria Vetruccio (Conservatorio di Musica Tito Schipa)

Butterfly Effect, the title of the event and the opening piece, is a composition that revolves around the citation of themes taken from Puccini’s opera, reworked, assembled, and influenced by a simple question: what if Madama Butterfly had not killed herself? This hypothesis leads us to reflect on the potential ramifications and the different directions that the story of the young Japanese geisha could have taken if its main events had been altered. Imagining an alternative ending where Butterfly decides to face reality and pursue a new path in life, the work poses questions such as: how would her relationship with Pinkerton have developed? How would it have influenced her relationship with her son? And what impact would it have had on her experience of emigration and adaptation to a foreign culture? Without the tragic choice of suicide, the plot of Madama Butterfly could have taken an unexpected turn, opening up new scenarios and conflicts. The hypotheses – exercised through the theory of the so-called butterfly effect – invite us to explore the infinite possibilities of an alternative story, offering us, at the same time, the dramatic power and deep reflection that Madama Butterfly’s tragic choice provides. 

Programa do concerto

15 de maio

11h – 13h | Estúdio CIME | DeCA UA

Palestra // 5 Memos for the Current Millennium. Five Studies on Italo Calvino’s American Lessons.

Oradores // Cesare Saldicco (Conservatorio di Musica “Giuseppe Verdi”) & Valeria Vetruccio (Conservatorio di Musica Tito Schipa)

In any research, including compositional and musical research, efficient time management can favor the deepening of the compositional strategies. In this perspective, the computer is used today to formalize and automate some of the creative processes used in music composition and analysis, so as to allow a quicker verification of the results obtained and a consequent deepening of the procedures adopted. Starting from the Max/MSP software and the Bach library, the workshop proposes (a.) to provide an introduction to the characteristics and potential of computer-aided-composition; (b.) to analyze the formalizations and implementations of compositional processes created by Cesare Saldicco; c.) to analyze, formalize, and implement some of the compositional processes suggested by the students. 

The following mathematics model techniques will be discussed and shown through CAC patches, writings, and listening:

• Rhythmic, metric, and interval organization models;
• The numerical comment and analytic readings of a string;
• Modulo operator;
• Modular Fibonacci series and Tartaglia’s triangle;
• Augmentation and diminution with non-standard coefficients;
• Rhythmic and polyphonic phasing;
• Shifting and shifting in shifting (simple permutations, permutations with repetition, and circular permutation);
• One-dimensional and two-dimensional cellular automata;
• Explosion and smoothing of a figure through a multiplicative coefficient

Biografias

Valeria Vetruccio, from Lecce, trained under the guidance of Franco Scala and Riccardo Risaliti. She made her international debut at the age of 17 at the Wiener-Saal of the Mozarteum in Salzburg, subsequently performing in Belgium, Austria, Greece, Germany, France, Spain, Bulgaria, Mexico, Australia, Poland, Canada, and Israel. In 1999, she made her debut in the United States at the Lang Recital Hall in New York, and in 2002, she also performed at the prestigious Carnegie Hall, where she returned in April 2012 to interpret Beethoven’s Concerto No. 5 “Emperor”, achieving a sold-out performance. She has performed as a soloist with numerous symphonic and chamber orchestras. She was recently guest professor at Kyoto City University in Japan, where she gave a master class and a recital. She is a piano professor at the “Tito Schipa” Conservatory in Lecce.

Cesare Saldicco is a composer, multimedia artist and filmmaker based in Milan.
Research interests include the use of emergent dynamical and fractal systems in generative works and nonstandard synthesis, glitch/noise aesthetics and new forms of interaction and self-organized presentation. He has had commissions, awards and grants from the most significant international institutions such as Accademia Nazionale of Santa Cecilia in Rome, Acanthes, Centro Tempo Reale, CECh – Comunidad Electroacùstica de Chile, Bourges International Festival of Electroacoustic Music and Sonic Art, CEMAT Federation, Musica Viva Portugal, EXPO2015, EmuFest, MUSLab, Mixtur Festival, AVAF – Athens Video Art Festival, Destellos prize, and La Biennale di Venezia
His music is edited and published by ArsPublica, Philology, Da Vinci Publishing, Sconfinarte, RMN Classical, and Stradivarius and has been widely performed in over 30 countries worldwide.
He is a full professor of electroacoustic music composition at the Conservatorio di Musica “Giuseppe Verdi” of Milan and curator of the MA/IN Festival.