Playing with silence is a book that Mirio Cosottini dedicates to those who love silence and all its aspects. In this volume he proposes a series of questions and exercises in order to initiate an investigative process that sheds light on its many facets as well as on its invariances; that which remains constant under transformation. In the first part of the book Cosottini asks questions that invite the reader to confront herself with various types of silence. The silence that frightens, that which enters our experience, the silence that hides in the world, the silence concealed within one’s body, the silence that enters our experience, the silence that can be cultivated, desired or listened to. In the second part the reader is invited to “play” with silence, to make it the object of a performative experience; silence is conceived as an instrument that allows to act upon and experience itself.

Mirio Cosottini is a Philosopher and Musician. He has written numerous articles on music improvisation from a musicological, didactical, and philosophical standpoint. As a musician he has collaborated extensively with many artists, both nationally and internationally. Since 2013 he is working on a PhD in Musical Aesthetics at the Univeristy of Trieste.