As one speaks with Serena Nono, it is almost inevitable that the topic veers towards her incredible family, guiltily overlooking Serena’s own contributions as an artist. The daughter of Luigi Nono, one of the most important composers of the twentieth century, and granddaughter of Nuria Schönberg Nono, herself Arnold Schönberg’s daughter, Serena, her sister Silvia, and their mother keep Luigi’s cultural and artistic legacy alive through the years. Archivio Luigi Nono has been established thirty years ago, while the Festival Luigi Nono is at its sixth edition, scheduled for November. The programme lists many events, not only concerts. On November 23, Serena Nono’s documentary I film di famiglia (lit. ‘family tapes’) will be screened at Palazzo Grassi. The film shows travels, meetings, the family house at Giudecca, and illustrious family friends.

The Festival.
A very dense programme. Over the years, we’ve been adding to it and made it more diverse. We started with a four-day programme, now we are covering the whole month of November. We named this edition Ascolta (‘listen’), a keyword when speaking about Luigi Nono, his life, his thinking. The word recurs often in his work, like in the Prometeo, for example. We chose a transversal approach rather than theme-based. The festival is entirely self-funded, and will include music from different authors, not just the one. Luigi Nono would have wanted his values to be conveyed by any form of culture.

An all-around intellectual.
I grew up in a stimulating cultural and artistic environment, attentive to whatever interesting was happening in the world, politically committed, and with depth of thought and sentiment. My father’s personality was intense: he was personally involved in social causes, which acquainted him with people from all social strata. Our house welcomed authors, philosophers, artists from all over the world: Latin America, Eastern Europe… Luigi experimented both in music and in life, and thought he would contribute to a new social order. His musical and political thought were two faces of the same character.

Learning and living music.
Luigi Nono composed in his home studio and spent long periods of phonology study in Milan and Freiburg. At home, he needed the utmost silence to work. We were somewhat involved, though, as we looked at him pacing the room, absorbed in his thoughts. We were so curious about all those sounds, those people coming in and out… thanks to our parents, my sister and I were always able to go see rehearsal or even premieres. We were always there, even if we were too young to actually have a voice.

The people you met.
There have been so many. Abbado, for example, was a precious collaborator and a fraternal friend. Maurizio Pollini, Yulia Dobrovolskaya, Luigi’s translator for his cooperation with Russian filmmaker Yuri Lyubimov, which shows how his interest reached beyond music. For a while, we housed a Venezuelan guerrillero, who played with us and told us stories. Silvia and I will remember him forever. We met several personalities of the Italian Communist Party, including the recently deceased Itlaian President Giorgio Napolitano.

Luigi Nono’s legacy.
I would say his attention towards ethics and research. He cared very much about researching language as a tool to verbalize modernity. He was not particularly obsessed or interested in large-scale success. For him, dialogue was essential, with everybody and anybody. He believed in a direct cultural relationship in any context and wanted language to reach out to all. He didn’t care for the myth of ‘elevated’ music being solely in the purview of the elites. By highlighting listening, dialogue, and open-mindedness, Luigi Nono believed that inter-class prejudices would have been eliminated. He wanted to understand different people and different realities in the hope that they would adopt the same attitude with him. He valued bi-lateral, authentic dialogue. Out of all relationships, he was able to learn something to use in his work, both in technical sense and as part of his humanity and culture.

Your relationship with Venice.
My father nurtured the strongest possible bond with this city and its history, which, it’s worth nothing, is a history of experimentation, innovation, hybridization. Sometimes, he suffered Venice’s insularity, this was back in the 1970s and 1980s, and needed to travel. Phonology studies weren’t a thing in Venice, yet. He worked with the Fenice Theatre, too. He didn’t maintain any deep relationships with the city’s institutions, for he preferred the human contact. I’m thinking of Mario Messinis, prominent critic and musicologist. As far as listening practices go, he loved the sounds of the city, and its silence, too. Venice is one of a kind: the sound of its bells, its water, its symbiotic relationship with water… what do I think of Venice? It won’t shock you: I think Venice has infinite potential, and chooses to exploit very little of it. Venice is quick to run towards money, but even the ‘museum city’ moniker doesn’t quite grasp the concept: in the world, there are many museums that make much better use of their potential. Over the last several years, Venice saw its craftsmanship base and local production of goods diminish drastically and dramatically. As a Venetian, I’m baffled. This is incompatible with its nature of hub of cultural production, not mere distribution. All too often, it seems we are here to sell, and nothing more. I’m thinking of the network of art galleries: so little remains of it…