Re: New radio show in Italy plays international Jewish melodies

[Francesco Spagnolo <yuval...>]

Dear Reyzl and everyone,

sorry for not replying right away, but I just got back from "Ravenna
Festival", a summer music festival in the city of Ravenna (by the Adriatic
Sea), that opened this year with I concert of hazzanut. Ten cantors from
Israel and Italy represented there some eight different Jewish musical
traditions. Yuval Italia (and myself) co-curated the concert together with
MAATAF-Jerusalem (and prof. Edwin Seroussi). But this probably requires an
independent posting.

The news about the Italian Jewish music radio show is actually quite "old"
by now, and things have changed (and still are changing) since then --
including the fact that I am no longer 28 years old.

The radio show mentioned in the article (written by writer-reporter Ruth E.
Gruber for both the Jewish Chronicle in London and the Jewish Telegraphic
Agency) is aired weekly since March 1997 on a local radio network, called
Radio Popolare. It is 1 hour long, and reaches a fair part of Northern
Italy. It has become by now quite popular, and among my guests there I am
proud to mention Brave Old World (and especially Michael Alpert), Di Naye
Kapelye, Giora Feidman, and more recently Hankus Netsky of the Klezmer
Conservatory Band. Altogether, though, this is not a "music" show, since it
openly deals with all sorts of "Jewish" topics, with guests who are
specialists in many different fields. The public may also call live (no
filtering!).

Following the success of the local show, RAI (the National Italian Radio
and Television) has asked me to produce and host a new show. It started as
a part of a general show on June 1998 (about 15 minutes live).  The general
idea was that of "music postcards" from the Jewish world. And it worked.
The show developed into a regular 30 minutes program on Sunday evenings (8
to 8:30 pm), with one phone guest each time, and all sorts of topics
confronted through a musical eye. Among the guests, I would like to
mention: Israeli writer A. B. Yehoshua; musicologists Israel Adler and
Edwin Seroussi; musicians Henry Sapoznik, Michael Alpert, Esti Kenan Ofri;
and many many others, for a total of 20 shows since last February.
Uh, the name of the show is "La carpa farcita", wich is a rough Italian
translation of "gefilte fish". The translation signifies both and "Italian
eye/ear" on Jewish musical traditions and the need for de-centerning such
traditions from the Yiddish/klezmer one, which is becoming so popular in
Italy and driving away the Italian public from a more realistic perception
of Jews and their cultural worlds...

Of course there is more to come, but I'd like to announce the new
developments when they are confirmed to me by RAI, leaving out all sorts of
proverbial "Italian improvisation" as much as I can.

And, of course, there is a lot to talk about the sort of "pioneer" work in
the radio I have been carrying on for over 2 years now (no Jewish radios in
Italy -- with a Jewish population of only about 30.000, who needs that? or
who can afford it?), the key role of music in it, and about "Jewish" radio
in general.

All the best, and shabat shalom,
Francesco Spagnolo


>I just found this on the web.   Francesco has been holding out on us on
>this good news.
>
>The next step is to get this program on the Internet.  Very important.
>
>I am reproducing only the first few lines of this article below in the
>hope that copyright issues are not raised.   You can go there yourself
>and read the rest of this article.
>
>BTW, I also found this piece of news at http://www.klezmer.co.uk/register.htm
>
>>First Italian Centre for the study of Klezmer music was launched in
>>the summer.  Yuval Italia, is an institute located in Milan and run
>>in collaboration with the Jewish Music research centre of the Hebrew
>>University.
>
>Reyzl
>----------------------------------------------
>http://www.jta.org/jun97/22-yuva.htm
>
>
>New radio show in Italy plays international Jewish melodies
>    By Ruth E. Gruber
>
>MILAN, Italy, June 22 (JTA) -- Francesco Spagnolo was selecting music
>for his prime-time program on Radio Popolare, one of Italy's foremost
>independent radio stations.
...........

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