L’affascinante danza di una squadra

Quello che mi affascina negli sport di squadra è ciò che avviene intorno, a lato, lontano dall’azione. Gli occhi, d’accordo, sono puntati sulla palla (o sul disco, nel caso dell’hockey su ghiaccio); ma a divertirmi è soprattutto il movimento dei giocatori che non la stanno toccando, quelli di chi si avvicina, di chi prende le distanze, di chi si muove o si arresta cercando di intuire che cosa accadrà nei secondi successivi.

Se la si osserva con un po’ di attenzione, ci si accorge che quella è una danza, una coreografia, con regole complesse. Lo si vede in campo ma salta all’occhio in modo persino più evidente quando si guarda una partita su una playstation, con giocatori umani che maneggiano i controller mentre un chip, seguendo i suoi algoritmi, agita e ridispone in continuazione le formazioni.

È a questo che mi sono ispirato per il mio Gioco di squadra. La palla è un inciso di quattro note, che gli strumenti si passano dall’inizio alla fine; e intorno si muove tutta l’orchestra, con armonie, temi secondari, ritmi, timbri che ne seguono gli spostamenti. In alcuni momenti le azioni sono nette, chiare, efficaci o disastrose ma molto definite; in altri il gioco procede a tentoni, come nella realtà, ed è difficile prevederne l’esito. Anche per questo ho affidato ai singoli strumenti moltissimi assoli, che mettono in evidenza di volta in volta questo o quel timbro: sono giocatori, con scatti e intuizioni che li portano in primo piano, magari solo per un passaggio, cedendo poi la palla al compagno che la potrà ricevere per proseguire il gioco; ed è in questo continuo movimento – realizzato attraverso temi decisamente cantabili – che trovano spazio idee musicali sempre nuove, con momenti che talvolta diventano vere e proprie danze, balletti, naturalmente senza che si perda di vista la palla: se ascoltate con attenzione, il piccolo inciso è sempre lì, magari al contrario o ben nascosto, ma c’è.

Nicola Campogrande, ottobre 2025

 

 

The Fascinating Dance of a Team

What fascinates me about team sports is what happens around, beside, and away from the action. Of course, the eyes are fixed on the ball (or on the puck, in the case of ice hockey); but what truly entertains me is the movement of the players who are not touching it — those who are getting closer, those who are keeping their distance, those who move or stop, trying to anticipate what will happen in the next few seconds.

If you watch closely, you realize that it’s a dance, a choreography, governed by complex rules. You can see it on the field, but it becomes even more evident when you watch a match on a PlayStation, with human players handling the controllers while a chip, through its algorithms, constantly stirs and rearranges the formations.

This is what inspired my Gioco di squadra (“Team Play”). The ball is a four-note motif, passed among the instruments from beginning to end; and around it, the whole orchestra moves — with harmonies, secondary themes, rhythms, and timbres following its trajectory. At times, the actions are sharp, clear, effective or disastrous but well-defined; at others, the play moves hesitantly, as in real life, and it’s hard to predict the outcome.

For this reason, I entrusted many solo passages to individual instruments, each highlighting a particular timbre in turn: they are the players, making bursts and intuitions that bring them to the foreground, perhaps just for a brief exchange, before passing the ball to a teammate who can carry on the play. And it is in this constant motion — built through distinctly singable themes — that ever-new musical ideas find their place, with moments that at times become genuine dances, ballets, though without ever losing sight of the ball: if you listen carefully, the little motif is always there, perhaps reversed or well hidden, but still there.

 

Nicola Campogrande, October 2025

Press

“…un raf­fi­nato gioco orche­strale “respi­ghiano”, con­dotto con sapiente mano, tra richiami natu­ra­li­stici e cita­zioni jaz­zi­sti­che.”
– Andrea Estero, Classic Voice, February 2026

“Gioco di squadra ha suscitato un entusiasmo immediato nel pubblico grazie alla sua piacevolezza d’ascolto: una musica che non aggredisce né annoia, ma conquista con naturalezza, richiamando a tratti il Bernstein di Broadway, con episodi jazzy e suggestioni cinematografiche. Atmosfere rese con grande efficacia dalla Sinfonica di Milano sotto la direzione attenta e partecipe di Tjeknavorian.”
–Matteo Lebiu. Apemusicale, February 4, 2026

Teamwork is the secret of both sport and music

The common denominator between the Milan Symphony Orchestra and the Olympic Games that are about to open in Milan is a brand-new twelve-minute piece. It is titled Gioco di squadra (“Team Play”), a spirit well known both to athletes and to orchestras, and it was written by Nicola Campogrande, from Turin, artistic director of MiTo from 2016 to 2023 and composer-in-residence with the Symphony Orchestra. The world premiere took place last Friday, with a repeat performance on Sunday, conducted by Emmanuel Tjeknavorian, thirty years old, who has by now become something of a phenomenon in the city, followed by a very affectionate crowd of enthusiasts.

Campogrande, can you tell us about this new work of yours?

“I started from what a team deals with not so much at the point where the action is most obvious—for example around the ball in football or the puck in hockey—but in the rest of the field. The movement of players as they position themselves moment by moment, trying to anticipate what will happen, is a kind of magical interweaving of choreography and kaleidoscopic figure, and it becomes even more fun if you play on the PlayStation, because there a computer constantly repositions the players.”

Together with Emmanuel Tjeknavorian, 30 years old, violinist and conductor (son of Loris, an Armenian composer), who conducts the Milan Symphony Orchestra in the piece Gioco di squadra written by Campogrande.

“Around the theme, the orchestra-team moves accordingly. It highlights it, accompanies it, varies it, changes its timbre, in a continuous process of working it over. And as composer-in-residence, given the familiarity that has developed, I allowed myself to challenge the members of the orchestra by giving them extremely virtuosic—almost gymnastic—roles: especially to the wind instruments, but also to the percussion. They compete with one another, so to speak. In sporting language, you’d call them ‘playmakers’.”

The Milan Symphony Orchestra, moreover, is experiencing a particularly positive moment, marked by the arrival of a new music director.

“Within a context of very high orchestral quality, which I had known for a long time. What really impressed me, though, was the extraordinary phone call Emmanuel Tjeknavorian made to me a few weeks ago about the interpretation of certain passages. Usually conductors—at least with scores like mine, where I care a great deal about clarity—make these calls to show that they have studied the piece, and I always welcome them with great pleasure and goodwill, of course. But Emmanuel’s call was much more fascinating, because he came up with questions that were specifically timbral in nature.”

For example?

“He asked me: at the beginning, what color do we have in mind for the pizzicato of the double basses? I replied: let’s look at the score—the very first instrument you hear is a vibraphone, and the double basses come in immediately afterward; that’s the guide. From that moment I understood how much the music was already sounding in his head, and how interested he was in understanding whether my idea of the piece coincided with his, or whether he was heading in different directions. This mix of attention and respect for what I do, together with this cheerfully proactive attitude, is exactly what I look for in performers. Because I build objects, I put notes on paper, but then it is they who make them concrete.”

The idea of working together around a shared project—whether an orchestra or a sports team—seems particularly precious today, given the prevailing climate of individualism and authoritarianism.

“And what makes an orchestra so special, compared to a sports team, is that it is made up of specialists. On the field there are certainly different roles, but in the end everyone does basically the same job. In the pit, on the other hand, the timpanists couldn’t swap instruments with the bass tuba player. But the miracle lies precisely here: highly specialized professionals come together to produce a result that would not exist if each one did not perform their own job perfectly. It’s no coincidence that, when the magic works, people speak of a shared breath.”

And then there is the role of the conductor.

“Which on the one hand consists of extremely high technical skills, of precise examination of detail, and on the other of charisma, of an almost shamanic power. Not everyone has it: orchestras understand whether a conductor is capable and authoritative even before he raises the baton.”

– Egle Santolini, La Stampa, February 2, 2026

2.2.2.2 – 4.2.3.1 – timp + 2 – str

Duration 10′

Commission Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano
in occasione dei Giochi Olimpici Invernali
Milano Cortina 2026

World Premiere
Milano (Italy)
January 30, 2026
Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano
Emmanuel Tjeknavorian (cond)

Published by
Breitkopf & Härtel
MM 2311131