The Orchestra “I Care” of the Istituto Comprensivo Don Lorenzo Milani di Scicli, in the province of Ragusa, and the Chorus of the Italian School Guglielmo Marconi in New York performed together on 2 June 2026 at the Diller-Quaile School of Music, in a concert entitled Note d’Italia. An event that the school manager Michele Agnello, unable to be present, has defined “a historical moment for our school community”.
The evening opened with the reading of its message, which wanted to thank one for one the protagonists of a path lasted months and supported by Italian and American institutions. Among the recipients of the thanks were the Consul General of Italy in New York Giuseppe Pastorelli, the director of the Scuola Marconi Antonio Nabile, the director of the Italian Institute of Culture Claudio Tagliara and the president of the Comites New York Deborah Pelatin Marchiassi. A support also arrived from the Sicilian Region, by Mr Geronimo La Turra, by the mayor of Scicli Mario Marino and by many local companies of Ragusano who believed in the value of the initiative.
“Music has an extraordinary force, speaks a language that everyone can understand, does not need translations because it comes directly to the heart of people”, he reads in the message, adding that every note performed “reports the work, commitment, discipline and dreams of the boys”.
On the stage, the Sicilian boys and the New York choir faced a program that spawned without hesitation between different worlds, from the Anthem of Mameli and the Star-Spangled Banner executed together in opening, in Heaven in a Room and the World, up to New York, New York at closing. To direct the two ensemble professors Ragusa, Cardillo, Sambuco and Pisani, who built a ladder capable of holding together distant musical souls in a natural way.
The event is part of a journey of exchange between the two institutions that the organizers wish to continue. The concert also celebrated the fifty years of musical education in Italian schools, an event that gave the evening a meaning that went beyond June 2nd.
To close, the applause of a room that had listened silently. Scicli counts not even thirteen thousand inhabitants. New York has eight million. The distance, for one night, did not feel.
L’articolo Sicilian students and the choir of the Marconi School together for the Festa della Repubblica proviene da IlNewyorkese.
