Experience a truly enchanting holiday in one of my Tuscan Villas
From 12 september till 6 december 2009 in Lucca.
Exhibit in a Center of Contemporany Art, via della Fratta.
Fifty photos of the artist’s wife.
Open tuesday to sunday – from 10.00 am to 7.00 pm
Closed mondays.
More informations on: Lu.C.C.A.
The new programme of the Anglo-Italian Club Viareggio will start in october and end in May 2010 following the academic year with a series of meeting, lectures and performances covering a wide range of topics wich can interest English-speaking people of any age.
The Anglo-Italian Club was fonde in 1959 by the former vice-president of the British Institute of Florence together with a few teachers and other people keen on the english language in Viareggio. Its activities have been going on for 50 years and its present day secretaary and main organizer Lucia Lucchesi was awarded and Honorary MBE by the Queen in 2004 because of her achievements in running the association for about 30 years.
The purpose of the association is to give people the opportunità to listen to and speak english in a social context and is therefore not a school of english but a totally no profit organization.
The lecturers are mostly native speakers of english specialized in a variety of subjects that cover a large range of interests.
All meetings take place on saturday afternoons usually at the Oratorio of San Paolino on the corner of Via XX Settembre and via San’t Andrea (Piazza Piave) right in the centre of Viareggio near the coach and the train stations. People who are interested can enrol during the meetings or during the first social gathering at Cafè Carmencita in Piazza Mazzini on October 3 when members will meet to socialize and have a drink togheter.
The first part of the programme for the period october-december 2009 will be issued in september, and will be featured in the october issue of Grapevine.
For information call +30 0584 962275 or look for the program on the Tourist Board site: APT Versilia
PROGRAMME:
Saturday 4 october, 4.00 pm:
c/o Carmencita Cafe’ – Piazza Mazzini, 29-30, Viareggio.
PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT 1.
Saturday 11 october 4.15 pm: (Sala delle Colonne – Palazzo Paolina, Via Machiavelli 2, Viareggio)
Ian Edwards and Jennifer Rice:
THE GOLDEN AGE OF POPULAR SONG
The story of Tin Pan Alley 1886-1956
( A Programme of Words & Music)
Saturday 25 october, 4.15 pm: (Oratorio)
Sinclair De Courcy Williams:
SOME IRISH ECCENTRICS
Saturday 8 november,4.15 pm: (Oratorio)
Anthony M. Kirk:
ENGLISH: PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE
Sabato 22 novembre, ore 16,15: (Oratorio)
John Denton: (Università di Firenze)
FROM THE NANNY TO LA TATA. THE ITALIANIZATION OF AN AMERICAN SIT. COM.
Saturday 13 december, 4.00 pm:
c/o Carmencita Cafe’ – Piazza Mazzini, 29-30, Viareggio.
PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT 2.
Anybody driving past the round about at the Viale Europe and Via Pesciatina cross road, ( a spot still referred to as Papao even thug that establishment closed at least fifteen years ago), may have been surprised even perplexed when the council erected an ultramodern statue, a sorto f dreadlock head of red tresses streaming to the Pizzorne hills. Each week you’d wonder when they’d get round to finishing it off clearing and polishing the rusty ild metal.
So Grapevine took the opportunità of the Hambros Hotel exhibition to ask the sculto Franco Pegonzi when this might happen.
Shame on us, he changed his style a couple of years ago and that rough finish is deliberate.
From the higly polished smooth lines of his marble and granite statues he has switched to a whole world of indefinite forms, and in fact the hotel garden was inhabited by his metal butterflies, gauzy animals and multi coloured ribbons floating into the blue.
Pegonzi showed grapevine round his converted bar studio in Lunata and explained how he transforms marble and stone into full size statues, table supports, ornaments, even paperwights. The gracious curves and magnificent sheen of his works, so highly polished they seem like white porcelain, all represent perfectly his favourite themes of harmony, peace and love.
Born in Barga in 1939, Pegonzi studied art in Lucca. The Hambros exhibition has generated enquiries from many nations so his new style metal installations could shortly be visible in many far flung places such as South Korea which are already host to his previous traditional style.
www.francopegonzi.it
info@francopegonzi.it
Starting on 6th september 2009!
This tournament has its origins in the early 16 C and commemorates Christian efforts to hold back the tide of Islam in the 14 C. A lively and colourful procession of costumed participants is followed by the main event in which eight costumed knights charge towards a wooden representation of the Saracen, aiming to hit the Saracen’s shield with lances.
The Saracen is mounted on a swivel so that part of the task of the knight has to avoid being struck back. Each pair of knights represents one of Arezzo’s four rival districts and their supporters each occupy a side of the piazza. The winner receives a golden lance.
More information on: Giostra del Saracino
The Orchestra Giovanile Italiana (founded by Riccardo Muti in 1984 and direct by Nicola Paszkowski) performed last month at Florence’s Teatro Comunale as part of the Maggio Musicale Festival, with guest conductor Gianandrea Noseda.
The musicians (all between 18 and 27) received hearty bis! and bravi! For their performances of Smetana’s Hakon Jarl,, Stravinsky’s Le Baiser de la Fée and Dvorak’s Symphony N. 8 in G major op. 88
The Orchestra Giovanile consists mainly of Italian performers, although there are eight foreigners ( from Poland, Ecuador, Japan, Romania, Macedonia, Mexico and Russia).
The musicians know that in Italy they must accept ludicrously low pay, but even so they aspire to this joyously, expecting to supplement their earnings with teaching and solo performances, but above all to pursue a career they love.
Three of the musicians ( all 25 years old) discussed their ambitions over coffee before the concert.
Percussionist Dario Varuni, a Florentine of Neapolitan extraction, although attracted to the progressive cosmopolitan capital Berlin, said he could imagine no better life than performing in his adepte city. Already he has a busy career that includes teaching and performing in the past as far away as Paris, Heidelberg, and Milan.
Cellist Anna Stasevich, on the other hand, who comes from Caluga (200 km from Moscow), said she would be thrilled toh ave a permanent position with any major Italian orchestra.
Stasevich studied at the Conservatory of Caluga and completed her studies at the Moscow State Music Academy with Alla Vassilieva. What she likes about being in the OGI is being able to devote all her time to practing and performing Harpist Anna-Livia Walker (from Lucca), who has recently played for Live Music Now in the UK and at the Lisbon Opera House, says she would be very happy to continue working both in orchestras and as a soloist.
Sureley the world needs more of this kind of music, but sadly Noseda, conductor of Torino’s Teatro Regio, told the audience that the Giovanile (OGI), widely recognized as one of Europe’s most distinguished youth orchestras, has had its funds cut in half this year. Noseda, who rehearsed with the musicians in the period leading up to the concert without accepting any payment, said that “ our future dreams” represented by these young artists, are under threat.