Bologna città della musica
The Musical bodies and associations of Bologna

• -> the musical bodies and associations of bologna
• -> competitions
• -> festivals
• -> cultural associations and centres
• -> seasons
• -> clubs with musical events
• -> schools and training centres

Royal Accademia Filarmonica of Bologna and Mozart Orchestra
In the last years the Accademia has continued its exceptional testifying and certifying role through honoris causa enrolments of the best names of the international musical and musicological world. Among them there are, for example, Ruggero Raimondi, Mirella Freni, Nicolai Ghiaurov, Nino Pirrotta, Luciano Berio, Claudio Abbado and Riccardo Muti. Today the concert activity is accompanied by an original commitment of the Accademia Filarmonica in the sector of artistic specialisation, through the organisation of workshops and master courses in opera singing, scenic art, opera conduction and thanks to the International Composition Festival “Alfeo Gigli”, aiming at a more and more effective relation with the city of Bologna, public bodies and national and international musical institutions. Thanks to the contributions of various cultural associations of the city, such as “Mondotre”, “Musica ed Arte”, “Le Muse e il Tempo”, the Accademia presents a playbill of six different series of conferences-concerts dedicated to a very heterogeneous public.
The Mozart Orchestra, a special project of the Accademia, gathers, besides world-famous professionals, around forty young musicians, half of whom benefit of a grant offered by the European Social Fund and by the Emilia-Romagna Region for advanced professional training. Conducted by Claudio Abbado, it unites young musicians and established soloists, it goes beyond the traditional idea of a training orchestra and combines the activities of production and training in a new and original way. Thanks to this originality, the Orchestra, which is part of the “European Mozart Ways”, has reached, after only two years, the peak of the Italian and European scene. The 2006 calendar presents nine concerts dedicated to the Salzburg genius, but also to other great composers, such as Haydn, Beethoven, Bach and Prokof’ef. The Orchestra has moreover been invited to play at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino (State Theatre in Florence).

The Stelutis Choir
It was founded in 1947, when the director and creator Giorgio Vacchi turned to the world of folk singing (which in those years included only mountain singing), looking for music belonging to the regional folk and country tradition. The cultural project, carried out in an independent but scientific way, availed itself also of the contribution of many researchers singing in regional choir groups: 5.000 texts were identified and are now being examined and compared with the help of sophisticated electronic techniques, set out for this purpose following Vacchi’s indications.
In the attempt of offering today’s public the most interesting folk melodies thus discovered, the choir has clothed them of musical atmospheres that recreate the lost world where they were invented and revive their subjects. The present repertoire of the Choir originates from these elaborations and is performed by many other Italian choirs, too.
For this research and composition work, resulting in eleven recordings, the conductor received the most important national awards for musicians in the amateur choir field. In the many years of its activity, the Stelutis Choir has sung in more than a thousand concerts, performing in many choir festivals and in prestigious theatres. The Choir has also been very active abroad, with concerts and tours in the United States (Baltimore, Washington, New York, Philadelphia, Carlisle and in many American Universities). The main characteristic of the group is that it has always renewed itself from an artistic point of view. The most important moment of this development was when, in 1990, the traditional group of four male sectors was joined by two female sections of sopranos and contraltos, which permitted to enlarge the range of sonority and of scores, so that the Choir was able to perform polyphonic pieces with six or more voices.

The Associazione Culturale Oltre… (Cultural Association Beyond…)
Formed by an international team of operators that work in the field of interculturality, it has developed the “Fest-Festival - Bologna Interculture Festival”. Established on the occasion of Bologna 2000, European City of Culture, the Fest-Festival has reached its sixth edition this year. The festival, which lasts six days and is completely free, presents a national and international programme of shows concerning theatre, music, art, cinema, dancing, visual arts, besides workshops for children and adults and a restaurant-bar that offers plates form the whole world. The Fest-Festival is characterised by a strong international dimension and takes especially into account the social and cultural realities of the territory, experimenting new forms of urban animation through specific projects, aiming at redefining the public space according to the new needs of the inhabitants. The “Oltre...” Cultural Association was also promoter in 2002 of another wide-ranging initiative: the Par TòT Parata – Bologna Open City. In the dialect of Bologna Par Tòt Parata means “Parade of everybody” and takes place in the streets of the centre. The Parade, which was inspired by the biennial “Zinneke Parade” of Brussels – with which relations are now being created that will lead to future collaborations – involves the city of Bologna in an explosion of music, dancing, street theatre, singing, fancy-dressing, masks, puppets, pushcarts and much more. It is a great multicultural and intergenerational, ecological and touring parade through the streets of the city centre, without motorised floats and with only live music [The Associazione Culturale Oltre… joined in 2003 a European circuit of festivals, called Network VII, which aims at giving visibility and value to cultural and social realities that are far from each other].

The Associazione Giovanile Musicale (A.Gi.Mus., Young Musical Association)
The division of Bologna, under the sponsorship of the Council of Ministers, the State Education Ministry, the Ministry of National Heritage and Culture, the Emilia-Romagna Region and the Province and the City Council of Bologna, has been organising since 2003 the International Piano Competition “Marco Fortini” for young talents and the International Piano Award “Marco Fortini” for concert players. Both the events aim at valorising and spurring young talents to continue studying and towards their future concert activity.

La Soffitta
The Theatre promotion centre “La Soffitta”, emanation of the DMS, has been carrying out since 1988 an intense promotional activity of live shows, characterised by the welcoming of other national and international artists and by an activity divided into projects that include moments of experimentation, elaboration and research of different expressive forms, which take concrete shape in expectation of in-depth analysis meetings with artists, conferences and workshops. The playbill is articulated in four sections: music, theatre, dancing and cinema, and gives life to an artistic project addressed to the whole city and not only to university students.
The City Council of Bologna, considered the cultural relevance of the Centre, supports and promotes its activities, as a recognition of its public interest [To this purpose the City Council enters into an annual agreement with La Soffitta, in order to support its activities. In 2005 the City Council allocated a subsidy of € 10.000.].

Il Diapason
Since 1983 the association has been active in the organisation of music projects that have given the possibility of valorising and promoting the artistic expression of young talented musicians, placing itself in the middle of a thick network of contacts with artists and European institutions. The association has been promoter and protagonist of about 1.000 events concerning learned music, musical education, theatre, art of dancing, folk music and the dialect tradition of Bologna.
Diapason takes inspiration from hidden beauties of the city of Bologna, taking over and re-elaborating flurries from all over the world; it tries to recreate the bonds that tie secrete places of the city to fragments of European history and of the ancient university culture [For example, the three evenings “Songs of an emerging nation” opened in 1984 the doors of the Royal College of Spain, a project then continued with Music without frontiers which, in collaboration with important foreign cultural institutions and with the sponsorship of Italian ones among which the City Council and the Province of Bologna, gave life to an interesting teaching and concert exchange, involving artists of various countries. The initiative closed with “Europe, Music today”, showcase of the music novelties of seven European countries].
Events have taken place in the College of Spain, in Piazza Maggiore, in the cloister of the monumental complex of Saint Stephen, in the lapidary and in the sheltered Court of the Archaeological City Museum, in the Medieval City Museum and in the Cappella Farnese of Palazzo d’Accursio. This particular attention has intertwined with other productive and promotional aspects, among which the effort of identifying spaces for teaching research, bringing to Bologna famous teachers, such as Alberto Ponce, Fabrice Pierre, Patrick and Pascal Gallois, Roland Dyens, Pierre Henri Xuereb and Gérard Geay.