ABOUT

Biography

Pietro Luca Congedo (AKA Stone Leaf) is a versatile composer, electroacoustic performer, sound engineer and educator. The research project born in 2017 under the pseudonym Stone Leaf represents the concept of coexistence of opposites and investigates the relationship between matter, man and machine through the contamination of different languages: the investigation of pre-existing states, form in form. Nothing is new. Mix and confuse everything, like wanting to undo and flatten all those “elitist” distinctions between forms and genres of art: “contaminate”. The Stone Leaf project blends contemporary experimental electronic language with the underground / IDMand ambient ones. His discography includes recordings with Stradivarius, EMI, Deutsche Grammophon, Trapez, Traum Schallplatten, and Detroit Underground. As an educator, he teaches Music Technology and Audio Recording Techniques at the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano. He also serves as an Official Cultural Mediator on art technology at LAC Edu Lugano.

Training

He studied percussion at the University of Music, Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano, Switzerland, where he graduated under the guidance of professors Mircea Ardeleanu and Bernhard Wulff. During his studies, he refined his skills with renowned performers including Isao Nakamura, Andreas Boettger, Fritz Hauser, Stuart Gerber, Taijiro Miyazaki, Mike Quinn, and Matthias Kaul.
His academic journey sparked a deep exploration of percussion, focusing on the timbre-rhythm relationship of sound materials. Treating percussion as harmonic material became a cornerstone of his artistic identity.

In 2002, Stone Leaf initiated international collaborations with esteemed musicians and composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, Steve Reich, Alvin Curran, Toshio Hosokawa, Sylvano Bussotti, Michel Jarrell, Heiner Goebbels, Martha Argerich, Arturo Tamayo, Johannes Moser, and Aleksandr Vedernikov.
A pivotal moment came in 2004 when he began collaborating with Stockhausen to rewrite the composition Komet.
This experience inspired him to develop innovative performance techniques and merge them with electronic research to reveal new timbral possibilities. His groundbreaking multi-set configurations, unconventional instruments, and sophisticated electronic devices—designed and conceived by himself—emerged from this exploration.
In 2007, Stockhausen recognized Stone Leaf as a recommended performer of his works.

Furthering his expertise, he pursued postgraduate studies in Electronic Music and Sound Design at the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana and the MAXXI Museum in Rome, Italy.
His artistic research culminated in the invention of PERSCULTRONÌC, an innovative fusion of acoustic and electronic music, percussion, and sculpture. This experimentation led to the creation of automated musical sculptures, resulting in commissioned works like Homoioméreia, which debuted at the 57th Venice Biennale in 2013 and utilized 43 Perscultronics.
In 2017, he founded the project Stone Leaf, aiming to integrate contemporary experimental electronic music with underground and IDM influences.

Musical Research

The research carried out focuses on the origin of sound through matter.
Complex sonorities are extracted from a timbral, rhythmic, structural, and molecular analysis of matter, which is made to communicate with electronic synth sounds by generating a specific timbral identity.
Everything is played with dedicated set-ups that incorporate innovative technology specifically designed for live performance.

His visionary intuition allow him a musical aesthetic freedom that manifests itself in compositions that embrace various musical genres, such as underground, experimental, classical and ambient, to the creation of compositions in which several musical worlds coexist.

Design, construction and installation of audio, video and lighting installations.
The works are felt as a physical experience, a sensory journey in which the proposed theme materializes through work on all of the senses (olfactory, tactile, auditory and visual) giving the spectator the opportunity to filter and choose what he needs (experincîng for example the sense that most receptive for him) and to thus become an integral part of the work.

Technological Research

Congedo invents a new technology called PERSCULTRONÌC, which represents a profound contamination of shapes and movement: technology, electronics, material research, ergonomics and sculpture blend, creating new and unexpected tools that represent the most innovative and current synthesis of applied sound technology and form, in relation to movement and to the human body. Space is sound. A special score notation is created for diffusion points that relate sound and space. Marble-matter ratio studies are applied to correlate the sounds produced with the vibrations and reflections of the various acoustic spaces, allowing the user to experience performance as a multi-sensorial physical experience.

SOUND PROJECTION & ENGINEERING

His quest for new sounds and sounds leads him to investigate the relationship between the timbre-object and his voice-expression. Sound is matter: the timbral and rhythmic analysis of the molecular structure of the examined matter allows for full consciousness of real possibilities, for a harmonious formal balance of coexistence. This process characterizes the identity of Stone Leaf. Stone Leaf has worked as a sound engineer for prominent ensembles, including Les Percussions de Strasbourg, Musikfabrik, Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, JACK Quartet, and ICE Ensemble.

Live Performance

As a solo expert in percussion and electronic instruments, Congedo invents and produces multi-sets of percussive instruments with amazing sound, integrating them with the most sophisticated electronic sound production technologies. The performances are also thought of for the dislocation of sound and space. From the great experience gained as a live performer, Stone Leaf develops innovative set-ups that combine conventional and non-conventional acoustic and audio instruments, which are played through software and control surfaces specifically designed for the live experience.

Organization Festivals Theatre

Biennale di Venezia – Italy
Teatro Alla Scala – Milano Musica – Italy
Teatro Strehler – Milano – Italy
Nuovo Auditorium Parco della Musica – Roma – Italy
MAXXI Museo – Roma – Italy
Fondazione B. Munari – Milano – Italy
LAC Lugano – Switzerland
Sinfonieorchester Basel – Switzerland
International Ferienkurse für Neue Musik Darmstadt – Germany
New World Music Days – Switzerland
Progetto Martha Argerich – Lugano – Switzerland
Basel Stadtcasino – Switzerland
Istanbul Parade Festival – Turkey
Swiss Expo 02 – Switzerland
Strawinskij Theatre Montreaux festival – Switzerland
Sala Rachmaninoff – Moscow – Russia
Teatro National de Brasilia – Brasil
Teatro Guaira Curitiba – Brasil
Università Federale Belo Horizonte – Brasil
Sulztalhalle in Kürten – Germany
Rai Radio Tre – Roma -Italy
Radio della Svizzera Italiana – Switzerland
Televisione della Svizzera Italiana – Switzerland
Odessa Festival – Ukraine
Gare du Nord Basel – Switzerland

UCLA – Los Angeles – United States

OTIS College of Art and Design – Los Angeles – United States

ASU Contemporary Music Festival – Phoenix – United States

AWARDS

Stipendien preise 2002 – Darmstadt – Germany
Stockhausen preise 2005 – Kürten – Germany
Stockhausen preise 2006 – Kürten – Germany
Stipendien preise Raiffeisen 2005 – Lugano – Switzerland
Stipendien preise Schweizerische Interpreten-Gesellschaft SAH 2002, 2003, 2004 – Zürich Switzerland
Stipendien preise IMD 2002, 2004, 2006 – Darmstadt
Stipendien preise Schweizerische Interpreten-Stiftung SIS 2007, 2008 – Zürich

Best Sound Editing Award 2022 – Hong Kong International Short Film Festival for the film Somewhere on Earth