The Italian Institute of Culture of New York opens June with a week built around music, cinema and literature, also to tell Italy outside Italy. After the evening of Friday, May 29 at The Players, dedicated to Nick La Rocca and His Brothers and to the contribution of Italian Americans to the history of jazz, the Institute presents two new formats and an exhibition on Enrico Caruso, one of the names that most linked Naples, New York and the birth of the modern music industry.
The first appointment of the week is Monday 1 June at 6 pm, in the Institute’s Conference Room, with the screening of School of Life. The documentary, lasting 87 minutes, tells the work of Still I Rise, the non-profit organization founded by Nicolò Govoni to offer free education to children who live under conditions of strong social exclusion, poverty or discrimination. After the screening a meeting with Govoni, moderated by Alessandra Botta, cultural attaché of the Institute.
In many countries the school is a growth space, while in others it can become a form of protection. School of Life follows children in the structures opened by the organization and shows contexts where access to education is not guaranteed, or arrives too late. It also explains that school is not a generic solution to any problem but, in certain areas of the world, a classroom can be the first place where a child is treated as a person with a future.
On Thursday, June 4th, at 6 pm, High Notes will leave. A New Generation of Italian Musicians, a new series curated by violinist Francesca Dego and dedicated to young Italian musicians. The first concert will feature Martina Consonni, a pianist already active internationally. The program combines Bach, Scarlatti, Amy Beach, Gershwin and Liszt, with a journey through Italian, European and American repertoires. The series includes four concerts and is part of the initiatives that the Institute dedicates to the 250th anniversary of the United States Declaration of Independence.
On Friday 5th June, at 6 pm, the Institute will inaugurate the exhibition Enrico Caruso: From Naples to New York. The evening includes the screening of Enrico Caruso, the Greatest Singer in the World, curated by Giuliana Muscio, and a conversation with Muscio and Simona Frasca on the role of Caruso in the Italian American imagination. Caruso was one of the first opera singers to become a global celebrity thanks to the gramophone: his recordings brought the opera out of the theatres and inside the houses, at a time when millions of Italians were migrating to the United States. This is why his figure is not only about the history of music, but also the way Italy was heard, recognized and often simplified in America.
Saturday, June 6, the programming will move on children, with two activities simultaneously from 10 to 12. In the library Lorenzo Da Ponte will continue Reading in Italian, the weekly program led by Malina Mannarino for children from 6 to 12 years, designed to encourage reading in Italian through books, guided discussions and creative activities. The Conference Room will instead begin Dance Words, bilingual workshop for children from 2 to 5 years created by Arianna Stendardo Gamble, dancer, multidisciplinary artist and educator. In this case, Italian is introduced through movement, music and play, with parents or caregivers present during the meeting.
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