{:en}PRESS RELEASE (07/25/2017)
Rachele Colombo winner of the Best Album Award 2016 will kick off the 13th edition of the City of Loano National Award for Italian Traditional Music, organized by the’Society of the Curious Association in collaboration with the’Department of Tourism and Culture of the City of Loano, with contributions from the A. Foundation De Mari and the sponsorship of the’ANCI and of the Liguria Region.
Wednesday, July 26 at 9:30 pm at Cloister of St. Augustine, after the award presentation, will present live his album “Singing Venice. Boat Songs.” (2016, Note), a modern songbook that recovers and repurposes the heritage of eighteenth-century Venetian boat songs, a small-great intangible heritage of humanity. A musical genre by anonymous composers that was widespread in the campielli, on Venetian shores, in gondolas at the “freschi,” during Carnival in the 1700s.
“... No eighteenth-century genre as much as the Venetian boat song," explains ethnomusicologist Paola Barzan - can be likened to modern pop song: it represented a true musical and social phenomenon, whose parable was consummated within a few decades with an impressive proliferation of manuscript texts and music in Venice and an equally important consumption of printed editions by the European salon society of the time. The eighteenth century marked for Venice a time of political and social decline but, paradoxically, thanks to choices made by the Republic that, dramatic in the long run, offered in the immediate term almost a century of peace, it also guaranteed a period of cultural renaissance: musical and theatrical production was at its peak, carnival was at the height of its celebratory splendor, and Venice began to be an indispensable stop on the Grand Tour of European aristocrats and men of culture. As the city habit of the boat ride, the “fresco,” spreads to new wealthy strata of society, an unprecedented “light” song becomes its usual accompaniment.”
The concert of Rachele Colombo will offer an opportunity to immerse oneself in the true spirit of this unique city embellished with recited fragments of Commedia Dell'Arte.
On the stage next to her will be Marco Rosa Salva (recorders), Domenico Santaniello (cello, drum) and Chiarastella Seravalle (voice acting).
The evening is organized in collaboration with the CEIS (Solidarity Center) of Genoa.
Admission is free.
In the afternoon at 18.00 in the Nassiriya Fallen Gardens the first of three events of the “Prize Meet...”.
The focus of the meeting will be the “Liu'ud” promoted by Factory Europe, an international festival of the contemporary scene held in Florence. Leading the meeting with Maurizio Busia, music director of the Fabbrica Europa festival and the musicians Ziad Trabelsi, Fabrizio Cardosa e Simone Pulvano will be the music journalist Jacopo Tomatis.
“Liu'ud” is the meeting of two cousin instruments: the ud - one of the most fascinating instruments in Arabic music, played by the singer and musician of the Orchestra di Piazza Vittorio, Ziad Trabelsi - and the lute - a symbol of Renaissance culture played by the musician Fabrizio Cardosa. At a time when encounters between peoples color everyday actions, when we negotiate for dialogue in diversity, building bridges and often remaining unprepared for this supposed novelty, we forget that all this existed long ago. There is a channel that has always connected peoples: music. This is the idea, the warning, the mood of “Liu'ud.” Through notes, the encounter of instrumental entities that overcome their ethno-musical origin and recognize themselves, in comparison with others, in their sonority and possibilities to create and reinvent themselves is told.
The City of Loano Award, under the artistic direction of John Vignola, promotes and enhances the contemporary production of traditional music with Italian roots through the involvement of artists, record labels, journalists and cultural workers.
The festival represents the crowning achievement of a permanent laboratory, which records what is happening in the contemporary production of Italian popular music; it is the moment of encounter with the public and an opportunity to make known the many musical expressions that animate the cultural reality of our country.
“Traveling” is the title of the thirteenth edition of the festival, where the journey is one of tradition and welcome. Italian folk music was an expression of the peasant world, and once that archaic world crumbled, it followed history with its social transformations: wars, work, emigration. Always “traveling” it has told the encounter with other cultures, singing the daily stories of ordinary people (love, struggles, aspirations) and renewing itself each time.
The new millennium with the processes of globalization has resulted in population shifts from places of war and poverty to the old continent. These new migrations bring with them new histories. Cities become places of many languages and identities. New sounds and mixtures, but also new challenges that contemporary popular music tells us about with its ability to read fears and hopes.
The festival will gather these testimonies to offer itself as a space for reflection and growth.
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