Robert John Iolini (born 1960) is an Australian-born composer, artist, filmmaker and radio producer.
Early life and education
Iolini completed a Master of Arts degree in Advanced Composition under the supervision of Professor Richard Vella in 1998. The title of the thesis was Simultaneity in Music.
Career
Chamber music, operas & sonic essays
Robert (Roberto) Iolini began his professional artistic career as a classical contemporary composer in 1994. His concert debut came on 27 August 1994 with the premiere performance of his compositions "Carne Bianca" and "Lingo Babel", written for violin, piano, bass clarinet and saxophone. These two compositions were commissioned and performed by Australian new music ensemble austraLYSIS at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Australia.
The following year on 29 October 1995 Australian ensemble Synergy Percussion performed his compositions "Whyitiso", "Lingo Babel", "Congo" and "Zimbabwe" at the Enmore Theatre in Sydney, Australia. In 1999, Iolini was commissioned by Danish duo Musica Mirabilis to compose The Cavern of I. The piece is scored for violin, piano and electronics. It had its world premiere at the Copenhagen Radio Hall in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 9 May 1999. Another Danish group called Ensemble Nordlys, performed the world premiere of Iolini's composition for violin and piano entitled "Anyong Arrirang" at Toldkammere in Elsinore, Denmark on 19 May 1999. At the same concert, Ensemble Nordlys gave the Danish premiere of Iolini's compositions, "Lingo Babel", "Whyitiso", "Congo" and "Zimbabwe". The following year Ensemble Nordlys commissioned and performed the world premiere of Iolini's composition "Okinawa".
Iolini is also known as a composer of electroacoustic music. Characteristic features of his electro-acoustic compositions are spoken and sung vocals and themes that explore social justice and contemporary culture. The form and style of these works, ostensibly for radio, vary greatly. Iolini often crafts field recordings, archival material, musical samples, scripted dialogues, original songs and instrumentals, into finely detailed narrative compositions that blur the boundaries between drama, documentary and experimental music.
The first example of this style is his radio opera Vanunu – which tells the story leading up to the arrest and imprisonment of Israeli nuclear whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu , co-written with David Nerlich. It was commissioned and broadcast on 25 July 1994 by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
Iolini's first solo composition for radio was in 1996. Another large scale musical work entitled Impermanence, which he describes as "a musical meditation on the impermanence of life and love". Impermanence was the ABC's entry in the Music category of the 1996 Prix Italia, Naples.
With the continued support of the ABC's radio arts program The Listening Room on ABC Classic FM, Iolini went on to create many experimental works for radio, such as Hong Kong: City in Between (1997), The Edwin Armstrong Overture (1997), Silent Motion (1998), Marking Time (1999) and Goddesses and Rabbits (2003). Hong Kong: City in Between was a prize-winner in the Soundscapes (be)for(e) 2000 festival in Amsterdam and Marking Time was nominated for the Karl Sczuka Prize (2000). Excerpts and complete versions of some of these works, although ostensibly for radio, appear on Iolini's two solo albums Iolini (2001) and Songs From Hurt (2005), both released on Chris Culter's ReR (Recommended) label. Both albums received favourable reviews.
In 2003, with support from the Australia Council for the Arts New Media Board, Iolini was New Media Artist in residence at The Listening Room, where he created the 45-minute radio artwork, The Sound of Forgetting. In this work, Iolini crafts "lost sounds from Sydney's past, media archives and scripted dialogues" into a sonic essay on the loss of identity as a result of disappearing buildings and architecture. The Sound of Forgetting was nominated for the 2005 Karl Sczuka Prize.
Iolini is a fully represented composer at the Australian Music Centre.