Drummer Valentina Magaletti’s first solo performance in Chicago combines improvisation and structured composition, concrète dub textures, and B-movie atmospherics, all driven by her distinctively twisted beats.

Valentina Magaletti (b. Bari, Italy) is a London-based drummer, percussionist, and composer with a diverse and exploratory approach to music. Conservatory-trained in Southern Italy, she first became active on the London music scene in the early 2000s and has worked across a wide range of genres for over two decades.

Her work combines traditional percussion with experimental techniques, incorporating vibes, marimba, contact microphones, and found objects. Feeling just as comfortable performing behind a delicate ceramic kit as she does hammering out motorik rhythms, her creative take on percussion has led to collaborations with Nicolas Jaar, Jandek, Charles Hayward, Graham Lewis, Thurston Moore, Ensemble Nist-Nah, and others, in addition to her work within Tomaga, Holy Tongue, and Vanishing Twin.

As a solo artist, Magaletti often investigates texture. Batterie Fragile (unjenesaisquoi, 2022) sees the percussionist play a porcelain drum kit conceived by Yves Chaudouët. In a similar vein, A Queer Anthology of Drums (bié Records, 2022), reflects on her queer identity, the ritualistic aspects of improvisation, and the oppressive realities of lockdown life by collaging together lo-fi drones, field recordings, and modulated percussive objects.

She has performed internationally at LAXART, Los Angeles; Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco; UnSound, Toronto, Krakow, and New York; Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge; Atonal, Berlin; Festival International de Musique Actuelle, Victoriaville; Festival de la Cité, Lausanne; Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow; Incubate, Tilburg; Nuits Sonores, Lyon; Hyperreality, Vienna; Tauron Nowa Muzyka, Katowice; Bozar, Brussels; Le Guess Who?, Utrecht; The Barbican, Southbank Centre, and Cafe Oto, London. Her music has been released on Editions Mego, Trilogy Tapes, Longform Editions, Blume, and many more.

In 2022, she and Fanny Chiarello co-founded Permanent Draft, a label and imprint that has published the book Basta Now: Women, Trans & Non-Binary in Experimental Music by Chiarello, and Kronblade, an album by Irene Bianco.

Presented in partnership with the Renaissance Society