Michela Gerosa

Four intense days marked by the thousand sounds of jazz spread throughout the city: from Thursday, March 20 to Sunday, March 23, the 46th edition of Bergamo Jazz takes place, a festival organized by Fondazione Teatro Donizetti with the support of the Municipality of Bergamo, the MIC-Ministry of Culture, and private sponsors. 'Sounds of Joy' is the title chosen by Joe Lovano, Artistic Director of Bergamo Jazz since last year, to showcase the great variety and vitality of sounds, rhythms, and colors that characterize a music that represents one of the cornerstones of contemporary artistic expression. Staying true to its nature, Bergamo Jazz 2025 will also be an international festival, a widespread festival: in addition to concerts at the Donizetti and the Sociale in Città Alta, significant events are planned in small theaters, museums, and venues transformed for the occasion into welcoming jazz clubs. There will be a strong representation of Italian musicians, including numerous new talents gathered in the 'Scintille di Jazz' section, and considerable space for jazz with a feminine touch, featuring established female singers and instrumentalists. Here is the day-by-day program.   Thursday, March 20 The first day of Bergamo Jazz 2025 will take place entirely in Città Alta, starting with a solo piano performance at Teatro Sant'Andrea in Via Porta Dipinta (5:00 PM) by Cuban Aruán Ortiz, whose fingers pour out a musicality where Afro-Caribbean tradition meets the most advanced jazz. Following this, a double appointment for 'Scintille di Jazz' at Circolino (6:00 PM and 7:15 PM) with the chamber-like Kairos Trio of saxophonist Gianluca Zanello. At 8:30 PM, we'll move to Teatro Sociale for an evening opened by pianist Antonio Faraò's trio, an experienced musician who, for his first participation in Bergamo Jazz, will be assisted by double bassist Ameen Saleem and drummer Jeff Ballard, former partners of Chick Corea and Brad Mehldau. The second set at Sociale will feature, in an Italian exclusive, Lizz Wright, one of today's most intense black voices who, thanks to a remarkable interpretive strength, best reflects the African American cultural humus, moving naturally between jazz, blues, gospel, and songwriting.   Friday, March 21 The second day of Bergamo Jazz 2025 will begin at 5:00 PM at the Auditorium in Piazza della Libertà with La Via del Ferro, a quartet highly appreciated by famous DJ and producer Gilles Peterson, including London saxophonist Alex Htchcock, New Zealand-born drummer Myele Manzanza, and two Italian musicians based in the British capital, Roman keyboardist Maria Chiara Argirò and Tuscan bassist Michelangelo Scandroglio. A lively group poised to be one of the revelations of the Festival. At 6:30 PM, for 'Scintille di Jazz', a concert is scheduled at the Legami Sushi restaurant, located in the heart of Sentierone, featuring the duo of saxophonist Lorenzo Simoni and trumpeter Iacopo Teolis, one of the groups selected for the Nuova Generazione Jazz 2025 project of the I-Jazz Association, to which Bergamo Jazz is a member. The main event of the day is certainly represented by the first of

BERGAMO FILM MEETING opens BERGAMO JAZZ Bergamo Jazz offers many concerts and more. The lead-up to the Festival, scheduled from March 20 to 23, is marked by several significant events that connect music with other arts, starting with cinema. This year again, there's the traditional handover from Bergamo Film Meeting, which on its final day offers two events at the Auditorium in Piazza della Libertà: the screening of the film Knife in the Water by Roman Polanski (2:15 PM) and the live musical accompaniment for Töchter (Two Sisters) by Ernst Lubitsch by multi-instrumentalist Danilo Gallo (5:30 PM). Knife in the Water is Roman Polanski's first feature film, made when he was not yet thirty, and one of the most successful directorial debuts in cinema history: it was presented at the Venice International Film Festival, where it won the FIPRESCI Prize, and was the first Polish film to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film (it lost to Fellini's 8½). The soundtrack is by Krzysztof Komeda, a Polish pianist and composer considered one of the most original exponents of European jazz in the 1960s. His sextet, which included trumpeter Tomasz Stanko among others, remains one of the most valuable and innovative formations of that period. Komeda, who passed away in 1969, also wrote the music for Innocent Sorcerers by Andrzej Wajda and Good Bye, Till Tomorrow by Janusz Morgenstern, as well as Cul-de-sac, The Fearless Vampire Killers and Rosemary's Baby by Polanski himself. Loosely inspired by Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, Two Sisters is a 1920 film belonging to the romantic comedy genre but with surreal traits: Ernst Lubitsch, one of the masters of German cinema, set it in an unspecified village in Southern Bavaria, telling the love story, marked by a whirlwind of misunderstandings, of a young man and two sisters, one beautiful, the other unapproachable due to her ugliness. Danilo Gallo is one of the most versatile and highly regarded Italian bassists, at ease in various stylistic contexts. He naturally ranges from jazz to rock, from improvised music to collaborations that see music interacting with other disciplines such as theater, dance, poetry, and cinema. He is the leader or co-leader of internationally renowned groups such as Dark Dry Tears, Gallo The Roosters, Guano Padano, The Last Coat of Pink, and the Lacy In The Sky with Diamonds project (with Roberto Ottaviano and Ferdinando Faraò). Exhibition FILIPPO SIEBANECK: A MAN OF CULTURE FOR BERGAMO On Wednesday, March 19 (6 PM; open to the public from 6:30 PM), the exhibition opens at Donizetti Studio, opposite the theater's ticket office, Filippo Siebaneck: A Man of Culture for Bergamo: through the display of photographs depicting him with great artists, posters, and documents, the Donizetti Theatre Foundation and Bergamo Jazz, together with the International Piano Festival of Brescia and Bergamo and the Friends of the Accademia Carrara Association, intend to commemorate, 25 years after his passing, Filippo Siebaneck, who for many decades was an extraordinary figure who marked the cultural

This year again, thanks to the collaboration with Centro Didattico Produzione Musica Europe, Bergamo Jazz offers the series of educational events 'Let's Meet Jazz': an important opportunity to introduce young people to a musical language rich in artistic content and bearer of universal messages of dialogue between different cultures, which are more necessary than ever today. 24 schools from the city and province have joined the initiative, which will take place at the Auditorium in Piazza della Libertà in the mornings from Tuesday 18 to Thursday 20 and then on Monday, March 24. 84 classes are involved, with approximately 1,900 students in total. Claudio Angeleri, President of CDpM, specifies in this regard: 'The educational section of Bergamo Jazz created by CDpM is one of the most important projects in the national jazz festival landscape. It is, first of all, the first in Italy. The first edition dates back to 1990, and over these years, more than 30,000 primary and secondary school students in the area have discovered jazz and improvisation this way. It's not just about concert-lessons, but choral and body percussion workshops that we conduct in schools throughout the year together with the Municipality of Bergamo. The Bergamo Jazz festival is the final stage where the same boys and girls join professional musicians, playing and explaining to their peers the characteristics and values of this music.' The first to be involved will be secondary school students, who in the first three mornings will be able to discover the secrets of the art of improvisation through the performance of pieces proposed by Giulio Visibelli (flute and soprano sax), Gabriele Comeglio (alto sax and clarinet), Claudio Angeleri (piano), Paola Milzani (voice), Marco Esposito (bass) and Matteo Milesi (drums), with contributions from musicologist Maurizio Franco. These meetings aim to introduce students to improvisation through various interactive examples that trace the evolution of jazz from its African-American origins to the present day. It's a journey in constant change, capable of capturing and developing in real-time the creative qualities of its protagonists (from Louis Armstrong to John Coltrane and beyond), based on the different cultures that jazz has come into contact with. Improvisation, that is, the ability to autograph any musical material in real-time according to each musician's personality, is certainly one of the typical elements of jazz. It is what differentiates it most from music of European tradition, in which two distinct figures have crystallized: that of the composer and that of the performer. In jazz, on the contrary, both coexist in the same individual who invents, interprets, dialogues with other musicians in real-time, making the music unique and unrepeatable. However, improvisation is not improvised, but a rigorous discipline based on very precise rules to be followed, which at the same time are reinvented. The meetings designed by CDpM for Bergamo Jazz intend to highlight these through the direct experience of the young people. On Monday, March 24, it will be the turn of primary school students with 'Everybody Wants to Be a

Three years after the performance of La Gioia, Pippo Delbono returns to Teatro Donizetti. The internationally renowned author, actor, and director, a poet of experimental theater, presents Amore, scheduled for Thursday, March 6 (8:30 PM) as part of the Altri Percorsi Season of the Teatro Donizetti Foundation. The performance will feature a large group of actors on the main city theater's stage: Dolly Albertin, Margherita Clemente, Ilaria Distante, Mario Intruglio, Pedro Jóia, Nelson Lariccia, Gianni Parenti, Miguel Ramos, Pepe Robledo, Grazia Spinella, and Selma Uamusse. Original music by Pedro Jóia and other composers. Amore originates from Pippo Delbono's encounter and friendship with Italian theater producer Renzo Barsotti, who has been active in Portugal for years, and their desire to create a show about Portugal together. From here begins the exploration of love as a feeling, a state of the soul. A true mechanism in the human organism that selects, shifts, shatters, and recomposes everything we see, feel, and desire. Amore is a musical and lyrical journey through an external geography – including Portugal, Angola, Cape Verde – and an internal one, that of the soul's strings vibrating at the slightest touch of life. The notes are those of the melancholic fado, which explode in energetic bursts through the voices of its singers, wide open to reach every corner of the hall; the rhythm is at times that of a parade, at times a tableau vivant, at times a slow procession; the image is a painting that changes in colors, warming and cooling. And then there is the poetic word, delivered in the warm register of the Ligurian artist through his usual, hypnotic chanting into the microphone. The words are those of Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Eugénio De Andrade, Daniel Damásio Ascensão Filipe, Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, Jacques Prévert, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Florbela Espanca. “This show – Pippo Delbono himself recounts – presents a dual vision of love. On one hand – and it's the texts that give voice to this – we all search for that love, trying to escape the fear that grips us. In this journey, we try to avoid this love, even though we constantly recognize its urgency; I seek it, but I also want it, and that's precisely what's frightening. But the journey – made of music, voices, images – perhaps manages to lead us towards a reconciliation, a moment of peace where that love can manifest itself beyond any individual fear”. Holding together an emotional montage that is never fully pacified is a scenic grammar that alternates fullness with emptiness, singing with music, live voice with silence, in search of a dreamlike and elegiac representation of the cruel ebb and flow of detachment and reunion. The protagonist is absence, distance, nostalgia, a mapping of emotions that delves into the soul of the author, his performers, and the spectator, who is called to always search with their eyes for what is missing and which, inexorably, is slow to manifest. Amore is once again an

Jesus, Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, Robespierre, and now Fidel Castro: on Saturday, March 1st at Teatro Donizetti (11:00 AM), the last of The Rebels at the center of the second edition of History Lessons, an initiative conceived by Editori Laterza and co-produced with the Fondazione Teatro Donizetti with the support of Cassa Lombarda, will indeed be Cuba's líder máximo. The task of portraying him from an unusual perspective will fall to Loris Zanatta: Fidel Castro, in the eyes of the University of Bologna professor, appears as the last Catholic king, who, just like the Catholic kings, was the architect of a fusion between politics and religion, coming to conceive a 'political' religion. According to Loris Zanatta, Fidel Castro did not create a political community but a community of faith, inclusive towards believers, ruthless with heretics. And his enemies were the same as those of Catholic Spain: Protestant civilization and the Enlightenment, renamed 'capitalism' and 'liberalism'. The l "ast appointment of ‘History Lessons’, which is achieving considerable success with an average of over 900 attendees in the first four ‘lectures’, will be introduced by journalist Max Pavan, head of" information at Bergamo TV. At the end of the "meeting, t" he author will stay with the audience for book signing at the Ridotto Gavazzeni of the Donizetti. Loris Zanatta teaches History and Institutions of Latin America at the University of Bologna. He is a columnist for the Buenos Aires newspapers "La Nación" and "Clarín" and a member of the Academy of the History of the Argentine Republic. He has numerous historical publications to his credit, including: Eva Perón. A political biography. (Rubbettino, 2009); History of Contemporary Latin America (Laterza, 2010); Populism (Carocci, 2013); The Catholic Nation. Church and dictatorship in Bergoglio's Argentina. (Laterza, 2014, also published in Argentina), Fidel Castro. The last “Catholic King” (Salerno, 2019) and Jesuit populism. Perón, Fidel, Bergoglio (Laterza, 2020).

Silvio Orlando returns to Teatro Donizetti, after the great success in 2022 with La vita davanti a sé: the popular Neapolitan actor, one of the most representative figures in today's Italian cinema and theater, will bring to Bergamo “the latest show produced by his company, Ciarlatani, written and directed by the Spaniard Pablo Remón, scheduled from Saturday, February 22 to Sunday, March 2 as” part of the Prose Season and Other Paths of the Teatro Donizetti Foundation. On the stage of the city's main theater, Silvio Orlando will be joined by Francesca Botti, Francesco Brandi, and Blu Yoshimi. A meeting about the show with Silvio Orlando and company is scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 27, at the "M. Tremaglia" Music Room of the Donizetti Theater (6 p.m.). Coordinated by Maria Grazia Panigada, Artistic Director of the Prose Season and Other Paths. Free admission by reservation by registering at the Eventbrite link posted on the Donizetti Theater website. "Ciarlatani tells the story of two characters connected to the world of cinema and theater. Anna Velasco is an “actress whose career is at a standstill. After acting in small productions of classical works, she now works as a Pilates instructor and performs children's theater on weekends. Between television soap operas and alternative shows, Anna is searching for the great character that will finally make her triumph. Diego Fontana is a successful director of commercial films who is embarking on a big production: a series to be shot all over the world, with international stars. An accident will lead him to face a personal crisis and rethink his career. These two characters are connected by the figure of Anna's father, Eusebio Velasco, a cult director of the” 80s, who disappeared and isolated himself from the world," writes Pablo Remón in his director's notes. " Charlatans are also several works in one: each of these stories has a particular style, tone, and form. Anna's story has an eminently cinematic style, with a narrator guiding us, where dream and reality blur. Diego's story is a “more classical theatrical work, represented in more realistic spaces. And finally, there” is, as a “pause or parenthesis, an autofiction in which the” author of the “work we are watching defends himself against accusations of plagiarism. These stories are told in parallel, they feed each other, they are mirrors of the same themes. The” whole is constructed with partly independent chapters, forming a structure closer to a novel than to theater. The “intention is for Charlatans to be an eminently theatrical narrative, but with a” novelistic and cinematic aspiration." "Finally, Charlatans is a play in which only four actors travel through dozens of characters, spaces and times. A satire on the world of theater and audiovisuals, but also a reflection on success, failure and the roles we play, in and out of fiction," the Madrid-based director concludes.

After 'Otello Circus', successfully presented in 2023, the 'Teatro La Ribalta' company returns to Bergamo with 'The Queen's Mirror', a show included in the Other Paths Season of the Donizetti Theater Foundation and scheduled for Thursday, February 20 at the Teatro Sociale (8:30 PM). Written and directed by Antonio Viganò, 'The Queen's Mirror' originally revisits the Snow White fairy tale, offering a reflection on the beauty contained in each person's diversity. On stage are three actors: Jason Mattia De Majo, Maria Magdolna Johannes, and Rocco Ventura, who were also the protagonists of 'Otello Circus'. Choreography by Eleonora Chiocchini. Dramaturgy assistant and sound design by Paola Guerra. Creation collaboration by Paola Guerra and Paolo Grossi. Set design by Roberto Banci and Antonio Viganò. Light design by Melissa Pircali. Produced by Teatro La Ribalta in co-production with Tanz Bozen Bolzano Danza Festival, with the support of L'arboreto – Teatro Dimora, Centro di Residenza Emilia-Romagna and the Cultural Institutes of the Republic of San Marino. Duration 50 minutes without intermission. In 'The Queen's Mirror', the famous Snow White fairy tale features two unlikely characters as protagonists: a Queen tired of always having to be 'the fairest in the land' and her Mirror which, weary of always having to repeat 'what others do', will seek an escape route. The Queen, orphaned of her reflected image, must therefore find a way to regain the trust of the Mirror. The result is an exciting tale that disassembles and reassembles one of the most famous fairy tales of all time. Eleonora Chiocchini's choreography reinterprets Antonio Viganò's theatrical text 'Bianca Neve', which has already been staged and translated into various languages: the Mirror and the Queen come to life in a dance of relationships, playful nuances, sometimes quarrelsome, at times mysterious, coloring their dialogue that will become body. Always complicit as only a mirror and the image it reflects can be. Antonio Viganò wrote in the director's notes at the time of the debut of 'The Queen's Mirror': 'Teatro la Ribalta-Kunst der Vielfalt celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2023. We celebrate this birthday by looking back, to understand what we have done and what traces and signs of this adventure have remained. This looking back helps us to see ahead, to understand and then design a near future. The Bolzano Danza Festival, co-producer of the show, has played an important role in our brief but intense history: the first show, 'The Minotaur', was born with the complicity of the Festival, as was the show 'The Sound of Falling', a performance created by choreographer Julie Anne Stanzak, a historic dancer of Pina Bausch's Tanztheater Wuppertal. So this return to the Bolzano Danza Festival has a special flavor. The show is also intended for children and adolescents because we want to meet the new generations, our future. An audience, that of children, who know well the language of the body and will encounter, thanks to this show, interpreters, dancers, and actors who are di-verse, who will reveal to them that

Following the public success of the first three meetings, which recorded over 900 attendees each, the second edition of History Lessons continues on Saturday, February 15th at Teatro Donizetti (11 AM). This initiative, conceived by Editori Laterza and co-produced with the Fondazione Teatro Donizetti with the support of Cassa Lombarda, will feature the next rebel, Robespierre. His figure will be analyzed by Luigi Mascilli Migliorini, Professor of Modern History. The lecture will be introduced by journalist Max Pavan, head of information at Bergamo TV. From a well-mannered lawyer in a provincial town to a symbol of the French Revolution, its illusions, and its horrors: Robespierre's controversial personality, still fascinating and subject to study and debate, reflects the unease of a bourgeois spirit manifested in an “incorruptibility” that later embodied the sacred principles of a Revolution, despite itself, inevitably destined to become corrupt. Member of the “Accademia dei Lincei, former president of SISEM and professor of Modern History at the” L'Orientale University, “Luigi Mascilli Migliorini is one of the leading scholars of the” Napoleonic era and the Restoration in Europe, to which he has dedicated two important biographies: Napoleon (Salerno Editrice 2002, new edition 2015) and Metternich (Salerno Editrice 2014). He is Commandeur de l “'Ordre des Palmes Académiques, Chevalier de l'” Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of the French Republic and visiting professor at the “École Normale Supérieure in Paris and the” Catholic University of Santiago de Chile. He is part of the Scientific Committee of Napoleon's Correspondance at “Fayard publishing house. For Laterza, he has published, among” other works, The Modern Age. A global history (2022). The “History Lessons” will conclude on Saturday, March 1st with Professor Loris Zanatta, who will present the figure of Fidel Castro and his revolutionary “political religion” (March 1st). At the end of the meetings, the authors will remain with the audience for book signings at the Ridotto Gavazzeni of the Theater.

Myra Melford, Dayna Stephens, Nick Dunston, Allison Miller replace the Dave Holland/Lionel Loueke duo Following the sudden cancellation of the European tour of the Dave Holland/Lionel Loueke duo, due to health issues affecting the English bassist, the Bergamo Jazz evening on Friday, March 21 at Teatro Donizetti will open with the Lux Quartet, a formation led by pianist Myra Melford and drummer Allison Miller, and completed by saxophonist Dayna Stephens and bassist Nick Dunston, all leading musicians in the international jazz scene. The project dedicated to Wayne Shorter - featuring Danilo Pérez, John Patitucci, Brian Blade, and Ravi Coltrane - scheduled for the same evening, and the rest of the Festival program remain confirmed. Only for holders of admission tickets to the single evening on Friday, March 21 at Teatro Donizetti, it will be possible, if desired, to request a refund of the ticket cost by contacting the Teatro Donizetti Box Office no later than February 25, by sending an email to biglietteria@fondazioneteatrodonizetti.org. This method is also valid for those who purchased the ticket online through the VivaTicket network. Recently formed around two of the leading figures in women's jazz, pianist Myra Melford, who was already a guest at Bergamo Jazz in 2014 with another formation, and drummer Allison Miller, the Lux Quartet immediately rose to musical prominence with the release of the album Tomorrowland in August 2024, which received four stars from the American magazine Down Beat. The group's name is inspired by light in all its manifestations, from the vitality of sun rays to the bioluminescence of creatures in the deepest oceans, symbolizing all the heights and depths that the quartet intends to explore musically. Since the late 1980s, Myra Melford has been one of the brightest stars in the jazz piano firmament. Among her main collaborative experiences are those with Henry Threadgill, Butch Morris, and Dave Douglas. In the late 1990s, she formed the trio Equal Interest with violinist Leroy Jenkins and saxophonist Joseph Jarman of the Art Ensemble of Chicago. As a leader, she has recorded numerous albums that attest to her compositional depth and the variety of expressive areas she frequents, from solo piano to quintet. For several years, Myra Melford has established a fruitful artistic partnership with drummer Allison Miller, known for her membership in the multi-award-winning all women quintet Artemis, as well as for numerous collaborations in the singer-songwriter realm (Ani DiFranco, Natalie Merchant, Brandi Carlile). Dayna Stephens is one of the leading saxophonists to emerge in recent decades. In addition to recording several albums under his own name, he has played with Kenny Barron, Ambrose Akinmusire, Julian Lage, Gerald Clayton, and many others. Bassist Nick Dunston also boasts an impressive resume: Marc Ribot, Vijay Iyer, Mary Halvorson, Tyshawn Sorey, Craig Taborn, and Dave Douglas are just some of the colleagues he has worked with so far.

9,265 total spectators, an average of over 1,000 attendees per performance: The Conscience of Zeno, the second title of the Fondazione Teatro Donizetti's Prose Season staged in the main city theater from Saturday, January 25 to last Sunday, has achieved a tremendous success. "These have been fantastic days: thank you Bergamo and greetings to the Mayor who is with us today!": this is how Alessandro Haber, the main protagonist of the show, bid farewell at the end of the last of the nine performances, one of which was applauded by over 1,000 students. After the curtain fell, in the dressing rooms, a cordial meeting took place with Elena Carnevali, who in turn thanked the great actor for the beautiful performance of the entire company. "This is the second year we're performing this show. There are cities where the audience is more accustomed to going to the theater and where we record more subtle reactions that capture certain nuances. Among these is certainly Bergamo: Teatro Donizetti is one of the theaters I love most and have frequented the most in my long career," Alessandro Haber recounted warmly, "Here you can understand that the audience comes to the theater with pleasure, with the desire to embrace you, to welcome you. Of course, it depends a lot on the show: it's like making love, when you find that special quid. And in Bergamo I believe we managed to touch the audience, also thanks to Paolo Valerio's direction which I find beautiful and the skill of the entire company, made up of a group of capable actors. I have a special relationship with Bergamo, perhaps also because my first love story was with a girl from your city. Beyond that, once again I felt particularly at ease here." Francesco Godina, who plays young Zeno in the show, was making his debut at the Donizetti: "From these demanding performances, I take home first of all the beauty of Teatro Donizetti, which I had heard about but hadn't yet had the fortune to experience. We're almost at the end of the tour, we have about fifteen performances left to reach the planned 100: in Bergamo, the performance attended by students was one of the best. Young people perhaps laugh at different moments than the, let's say, traditional audience. This means that they are perhaps more sensitive to a different kind of humor that captures them. The satisfaction comes precisely when the laughter arrives on Svevo's text. Which means that our operation has succeeded."