mozart in italy

Italy with the eyes of Mozart

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November 30, 2022 – Brilliant lecture by orchestra conductor Wojciech Milewski about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in Italy: the amazing journey that launched a 13-years-old prodigy.
It was 1769 when the young composer and his father Leopold started an extensive voyage in Italy trough Duchies, Republics, and States. Those years were profoundly influential on Mozart musical future.
The first Italian trip was an extended tour of 15 months, and it was financed by performances for the nobility and by public concerts. They stayed in Verona, Mantua, Cremona, Milan, Lodi, Piacenza, Parma, Modena, Bologna, Florence, Siena, Orvieto, Viterbo, Rome, Marino, Sessa, Capua and Naples (with visits to Vesuvius, Pompeii, Herculaneum, Caserta and Capodimonte). Later Mozart spent two months in Venice, guest at Casa Ceseletti, a private house a few steps away from the piazza San Marco.

Wojciech Milewski is a very talented orchestra conductor and he is the Music Director of Charleston Opera Theatre and Director of Summerville Orchestra.

The event included a reception with hors d’oeuvres and Italian wines.

Photo: Portrait of Mozart at the age of 13 in Verona playing the harpsichord, in a white wig and red frock by Italian painter Giambettino Cignaroli

Divin Dante

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GREENVILLE CIRCLE
We invite you to join us for a Summer Salon, presenting “Divine Dante,” with Dante Scholar Natalina Ferlauto.
Dante’s continuing influence engages the novice to the expert, as there is always something to discover and a new way to increase your understanding of the way that Italian literature presents us with themes still relevant today.
As John Ciardi said, “The gold of Dante runs deep, but it also runs right up to the surface.”

We look forward to meeting with you and gaining fresh new insight from Dante’s Divine Comedy, with our Dante Dialogue.

Summer Salon
Friday, August 26th, 2022
6:30pm-8:00pm
Younts Conference Center
Furman University
1250 Duncan Chapel Road
Greenville, SC 29617

Free for members – Non Members $30

Puglia and Sicily: sip and learn

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A summer night inspired by Sicily and Puglia.

A lovely opportunity of embarking on a sensory journey through PUGLIA and SICILIA, two of the most fascinating Southern Italian regions with superb local wines.
We tasted and learned about four hand-picked wines by Alessandro Guarino, an Italian wine expert while Stefano Paris, an Italian former National Geographic tour leader, and founder at I for Italia, will introduce the regions with anecdotes, interesting stories, and travel tips.
The tasting included a welcome bubbly drink as well as Italian tasty “aperitivo-style” appetizers.
The wine chosen for the tasting were Zibibbo Siciliano, Rosè di Puglia, Nero d’Avola and Salice Salentino

Thank you for “traveling” with us to Southern Italy for one night, celebrating the beautiful summer season!

Dedication to Italian marble

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May 12, 2022 – The Spring event is dedicated to Jyl Bonaguro, the only female sculptor carving Italian marble by hand like at the age of Michelangelo. The event will start with the screening of Lifted, a very charming documentary made in Carrara, Tuscany, about Jyl. To follow an Opera performance by Soprano Saundra DeAthos and Tenor Edward Brennan, accompanied by pianist Wojciech Milewski. The singers will offer to the audience iconic arias such as O del Mio Amato Ben, Core ‘ngrato, O mio babbino caro, E lucevan le stelle, Ave Maria, Nessun dorma, O soave fanciulla.
The venue is the sanctuary of the iconic St. Michael’s Church in the very heart of Downtown Charleston, 71 Broad Street.
Event starts at 6:00 pm. After party at 7:30 pm to celebrate Jyl in a private residence with one of the most beautiful garden in Charleston!

 

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Passion in Venice

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April 21, 2022 – VIP Event
Conversation with Andrea di Robilant
Six o’clock in the afternoon
Interview by Thomas Bradford, former CBS News executive in New York
Carolina Yacht Club – 50 E Bay St, Charleston, SC 29401

Writer Andrea di Robilant is the speaking guest traveling from Rome to Charleston for our members. Before his lecture in Charleston, we’ll see him in the upcoming CNN series Searching For Italy by Stanley Tucci. Tucci features him in the episode about Veneto, and di Robilant has a deep bond to the area. His family counts 7 Doges, the prestigious title of chief magistrate and leader of the Republic of Venice between 726 and 1797.
Andrea is the author of acclaimed book Autumn in Venice: Ernest Hemingway and His Last Muse. The book explores the little-known love affair between a 50 year-old Hemingway and an 18 year-old Italian countess, Adriana Ivancich.
They met at Harry’s Bar, naturally, where they started a seven-year relationship, exchanging poignant love letters that went unpublished for decades. Two years into his marriage with Mary, wife number four, Hemingway fell hard for the young Italian beauty, 30 years his junior. The book by Andrea di Robilant, goes deep into this emotionally disturbing period of Hemingway’s life. The result is a love story on two levels — one involving an alluring city, the other Hemingway’s regrettably immature propensity for seeking extramarital bliss.

Photo of Ernest Hemingway and Adriana from the HEMINGWAY COLLECTION at the JFK LIBRARY, Boston, MA

adriana-ernest

making-a-home-in-a-tuscan-village

Making a home in a Tuscan village

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March 18, 2022 – Lecture and live sketches by artist Forrest Spears with a focus on the Lunigiana area.
The Lunigiana is the far northern tip of Tuscany and its landscape is dominated by the upper (northern) section of Italy’s backbone, the Appenines. It’s not a touristic spot at all and there are over 160 castles to discover tucked into its landscape.
Born in Denver, Colorado, Forrest Spears lived all over the US, from Portland to Boston, and points in between. He moved to Italy in 1987 to work as a fashion designer and he spent 15 years designing shoes. Today, he calls home the property Il Poggiolo in Codiponte after a complex renovation.

Missione Venezia

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February 17, 2022 – A whole event dedicated to Venice. The guest speaker from Italy is Melissa Conn, Director of the Venice office of Save Venice, the American non- profit organization dedicated to preserving the artistic heritage of Venice.
It’s an incredible opportunity to learn about Venice from a different point of view. As Melissa Conn says “In some ways, Venice is one of the wonders of the world. The fact that man created such an incredibly beautiful city, the impossible city built out of the water, makes Venice unlike any place else, and it should be preserved.”
Saving Venice, she says, should matter to all of us, whether we’re Italian or American, whether we’ve been to Venice or not, for all that Venice gives us.
A long-time resident of Venice with thirty-three years of experience in the field of Venetian art history and conservation, Ms. Conn oversees Save Venice restoration projects in Venice, and lectures in Italy and the United States on the preservation of Venetian art.
Join us on Thursday, February 17 at the McBee House 133 Smith Street, Charleston, SC 29401.