Kali Malone

Kali Malone believes in the emotional and spiritual power of resonance. During her performances, sound and architecture reveal themselves as absolute, necessary languages in dialogue with one another, capable of sculpting space and, for the listener willing to submit to the experience, evoking lexical and introspective suggestions; an immersive experience that, if not catharsis, should at least bring a profound sense of calm.

The event takes place at Chiesa Rossa, beneath the clean, minimalist vaults of the Chiesa di Santa Maria Annunciata, lit by the blues, yellows and reds of Dan Flavin's permanent installation. The light is cold and severe; the organ to be used for the performance sits along the side, halfway down the nave. It has a hut-shaped wooden structure divided into three sections, powerful and brutal. The gleaming steel pipes taper off towards the sides. In the lower part, the open doors reveal two niches stacked one above the other; in the upper part, as if it were a cross-section of a Pomodoro sculpture, smaller cylinders are arranged in three tiers; below them sit the keyboards and the dark-handled stops. Set into the central body, squared, hollow chimneys rise up almost to touch the sloping roof.

Few, however, realise that the performance will actually take place there, misled by the arrangement of the pews and chairs, which face the altar and the huge round iron point suspended above the metaphysical canopy. I notice too late myself, but in time to realise that a stone column will stand, with surgical precision, between me and the artist. The same fate befalls two thirds of the audience.

The wait for the start is filled with anticipation, the customary quarter-hour's grace spent listening to the organ idly rolling out a note, like passengers on a plane stopped on the runway with the engines running.

When Kali Malone finally walks into the nave, accompanied by Stephen O'Malley, drone guru and her artistic and romantic partner, a relieved round of applause follows her until she sits down at the organ. No introduction, no words, no statement. The performance begins as a nimble continuation of the note held throughout the wait.

The setlist is a selection of Malone's organ pieces, drawn from the single-themed "The Sacrificial Code" and the more varied "All Life Long".

What happens is exactly what you'd expect: the long chords reverberate through the space, building a tense atmosphere of delicate sacredness that invites quiet contemplation. The hidden performance and the lit-up hall heighten the sense of alienation from oneself and soften the ritual quality of the artist-concert format, shifting attention away from the performance itself and onto the experience that is meant to be built around the music.

It will last an hour and a half, with the pieces performed punctuated by, in order: the heavy, expectant silence typical of the most austere classical-music audiences waiting for the next piece; the disapproving applause aimed at those who dared break that same heavy silence; a scattering of more convinced applause and other clapping free of solemnity but marred by the shuffling of part of the audience fleeing; then bewildered rounds of approval and shifted chairs, all funnelled into a finale bolstered by the more heartfelt clapping of those who remained.

During the performance, the organ vibrates powerfully, laying down solid carpets of sound that seem like dark, meditative recitations of Western sutras; the Self sublimates into all manner of reflections, on the self and on the self without self, but also on the fleeting miseries of daily life, vulgar flashes of matter within a will toward the immaterial. The woman in front of me busies herself capturing the moment, which she recognises as noteworthy, taking countless shots of the same blue vault, adjusting the angle with millimetric shifts on her own axis. To my left, two English lads keep repeating "wonderful place, wonderful place"; someone looks up at the ceiling, others close their eyes; still others stare at the artist, submitting themselves to a conscious and necessary Ludovico treatment — two girls hold each other up in a strange balance, each resting her head on the other's shoulder, both clinging to the back of a pew.

Kali Malone, first admired and then assisted by Stephen O'Malley, performs the pieces with a slight air of disenchantment. From the column that blocks part of my view, I can just make out her pale hands imperceptibly pulling or pushing in the stops. The music changes so slowly that time and space themselves are called into question.

Listening becomes a swimming experience that turns into a shipwreck; you agree to drift, carried off by a lukewarm current, trusting the liquid in the hope of eventually finding yourself washed up on an island. Then even the hope of reaching land is abandoned, dry ground stops mattering, you give up the surface search and start sinking into the depths of white, solitary, deserted oceans; vast empty spaces open up where the only sound is that of the organ within the void of one's own non-thoughts.

It's an experience of liberation from one's existential Self which, at this point, should be mirrored in the freed (un)consciousnesses of others, generating a collective rite of purification and reconnection to the essential and to the dimension of the sacred; but at times one unfortunately runs into indifference and puzzlement instead; many are scrolling through cooking tutorials on their phones.

As the last piece begins, some people leave, wearing a mixed expression: the shame of being caught out as unequal to such a metaphysical undertaking, and the ontological relief of being able to file the experience away as done.

One of the guys sitting next to me uses his ecru-coloured coat like a blanket against the cold, and sighs.

When the concert ends, I notice the staff, clustered beneath the niche housing a Madonna and Child: they stand motionless, fixed as in a dreamlike long take from a Fellini of the spirits. They betray no expression, no emotion; suspended in an ecstatic moment, they merely hold on gently to the equipment, as though afraid it might fly away if they let go. In the uncertain silence, a creak of wood. Kali Malone has stood up to take her bow. The applause given to her is loud and resolute, smartphones return to pockets, and someone even lets out a "brava!", and all those days of fasting and silence finally have a meaning. She thanks the organ, retraces her steps down the nave, and, with lightness and a hint of embarrassment, disappears toward the sacristy.

Outside, conversation resumes, many linger under the portico, smiling and smoking; the rain has stopped too.

The event was organised by Fondazione Prada together with Threes, as part of an enlightened collaboration devoted to new sonic forms and experimental music. A fascinating, evocative concert which, once the scent of Dior incense has faded, remains perhaps one of the most compelling forms of contemporary sacred music you can experience today.

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