Bologna città della musica
Bologna the Creative City

Thematic criteria

Recognised centres for musical activities and music creation

In 1666, the Accademia Filarmonica was founded, one of the most important musical coteries of all times, that became place of aggregation of renowned personalities of the music scene such as Arcangelo Corelli, Farinelli, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

The Accademia is still among the most active bolognese musical institutions: in addition to the Concert seasons of prestige, it promotes Conference series, Specialisation courses and exhibitions organised in its own museum.

The Mozart Orchestra, a special project of the Accademia, gathers, besides world-famous professionals, around forty young musicians and is directed by M° Claudio Abbado.

Furthermore, Bologna is the seat of one of the most ancient and prestigious Italian music institutions, the Teatro Comunale (Municipal Theatre), which carries out a constant activity of interpretation and modernisation of the most famous masterpieces through an absolutely unconventional staging.

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Tradition in fostering music festivals and events

The city of Bologna is one of the most important places for Italian and international events, seasons and festivals. As a matter of fact, the city hosts some international events, such as the International Composition competition “2 Agosto” (2nd of August), the European Jazz Festival, the Mico Contemporary Music Festival, the intercultural Festival “Suoni dal Mondo” (Sounds from the World) and the Scandellara Festival, a very original festival, that has been going on for over 13 years and presents concerts of bands of the Bologna rock scene. Another event of international relevance is the Bologna Festival, dedicated to classical, baroque and contemporary music.

Bologna also hosts the main Italian festival of contemporary pop music, the “Heineken Jamming Festival”. Tt is, lastly, the seat of "Angelica”, an international festival of contemporary music, of “Distorsonie”, one of the most important festivals of electronic music in Europe and of “Flava of the year”, by now a ten-year old event dedicated to street-culture and hip-hop.

In 2006 Bologna will moreover play host to “Nonsolomozart” (Not only Mozart), a series of events (concerts, conferences, guided tours to the historic places of the city), planned to celebrate the 300 years from Mozart’s birth and 250 from the birth of Father Giovan Battista Martini, one of the greatest composers of the European Eighteenth century.

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Promoters of the music industry, at independent or traditional level

The city is the seat of Fonoprint, a recording studio of important national and international artists, such as Paolo Conte, Giorgio Gaber, Lucio Dalla, Francesco Guccini, Fiorella Mannoia, Ennio Morricone, Adriano Celentano, Sting, Mariah Carey, the Cranberries, Giorgia, Zucchero and Vasco Rossi.

Bologna counts also many independent labels that offer recording studios and technical support to emerging bands of the city music scene. Among the independent producers one can’t forget Mauro Malavasi, Celso Valli, Fio Zanotti and Guido Elmi, producers of Vasco Rossi, Laura Pausini and Eros Ramazzotti, as well as of other artists.

Bologna also hosts important management offices, such as Concerto Management, Ph. D. Management, MT Opera & blues, Musica srl and Ballandi entertainment, that manage internationally famous artists like Paolo Conte, Zucchero, Lucio Dalla, Andrea Bocelli and Francesco Guccini. A research carried out in 2001 shows that there are around 200 musicians and music groups, that from the post-war period up to now have produced records in Bologna.

Furthermore, in 2005 Bologna celebrated the centenary of its oldest publishing and music production firm, called “Bongiovanni”, which was founded at the beginning of the last century under the name of “Gabinetto della Musica” (Music Room). During the years it operated, the publishing house, a real cultural salon visited by famous musicians such as Respighi, Puccini and Caruso, produced recordings of particularly rare or unknown operas, both in opera and in instrumental form.

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Conservatories, schools, academies and secondary education institutions

The University of Bologna was the first Italian University that established the DAMS (Art, Music and Show Department), a structure that in 2006 counts over 7000 students.

Bologna is also seat of the Music Conservatory “G.B. Martini”, one of the oldest and most prestigious in Italy, heir of the tradition of Father Martini’s Accademia Filarmonica. Lastly, the city counts many schools and music education institutions, as can be seen from the following chapters.

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Informal music education, amateur choirs, orchestras and other non-institutionalised forms of music

Of the over 500 cultural associations registered at the City Council of Bologna, 122 are active in promoting musical events and about 180 in organising theatre performances and events.

The city counts a very high number of cultural and amateur associations, which organise events and festivals and offer music courses of every kind, from traditional guitar courses to more characteristic courses of traditional folk singing, to courses of musical education for very young children.

Bologna is also the seat of the “Orchestra do Mundo”, an international orchestra that represents an ethical and intercultural project, started by a group of musicians, producers and social operators in the summer of 2003.

Among the amateur choirs, a role of international relevance is played by the Coro Stelutis, which from 1947 produces music belonging to the regional folk and country tradition.

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Place of birth, residence and work for musicians and composers

The combination of City and Music is one of the most important realities of Bologna, both for the number of events and for the importance of the personalities of the music scene who have visited the territory of Bologna.

The splendid picture of Santa Cecilia (Saint Cecilia), painted by Raffaello at the beginning of the Sixteenth century, as patron saint of music with the earthly music instruments lying abandoned at her feet – today the painting is kept in the Municipal Picture Gallery – can be considered the symbol of the importance of music for the city history and tradition.

Bologna welcomed musicians like W.A. Mozart who in 1770, when he was only fourteen years old, undertook the entry examination at the Accademia Filarmonica, which he passed thanks to the lessons and the help of the Franciscan Father G. B. Martini, a world-famous musicologist, who corrected some of his mistakes before the examination papers were handed in. The training and attraction role Bologna plays for musicians renowned in the whole of Europe, continued in the 19th century with the foundation of the Liceo Filarmonico (Philharmonic High School) – today “G. B. Martini” Conservatory of Music –, which welcomed as its students, among others, Gioacchino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti and Ottorino Respighi.

In the streets of the city it is possible to spot the places of birth and study and the homes of great artists who lived in Bologna for various periods of their lives, like Carlo Broschi known as Farinelli, the most famous singer of the Eighteenth century, Gioacchino Rossini, Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner, who received the honorary citizenship from the City of Bologna. In 2004, the same honour was granted to the Conductor Riccardo Muti.

At present Bologna, besides hosting some of the most important recording studios at international level, is the city of residence of some of the most famous Italian pop music song-writers, such as Francesco Guccini, Lucio Dalla and Gianni Morandi, of world-famous jazz players, like Steve Grossman and Paolo Fresu, and welcomes music festivals of international level, like the International Composition competition “2 Agosto” and the Zecchino d’Oro Festival (children’s choir festival).

Lastly, the presence on the territory of Bologna of many young people coming from all parts of Italy has favoured the development of new emerging bands, oriented both towards rock and pop, but also towards other more innovative forms of music like electronic music (of which the Conservatory has established the first class in Italy), and music forms aiming at the recovery of traditional local sounds.

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National and local platforms for particular music genres

Bologna is surely a centre of attraction for many music genres. Besides the official channels of classical and opera music, Bologna gathers a great number of other music realities.

Bell-playing art. Since the Middle Ages, the presence of bells has punctuated the rhythm of civil and religious events in the city and, in the second half of the Sixteenth century, this brought to the invention of a particular mounting system that enabled a simultaneous concert of at least four bells. Even nowadays it is still possible, on special occasions, to listen to pieces of this very special bell-playing art “alla Bolognese” (in the Bologna way) from the tower of the church of San Pietro or of San Petronio.

Folk music. Moreover, in the Seventies, a very particular music typology developed: the traditional folk music performed in the inns of Bologna. But Bologna, city where every year thousands of people converge from all parts of Italy, is very active also in the promotion of the traditional music of other Italian regions. In the autumn of 2005, the City Council of Bologna, in collaboration with the Emilia-Romagna Region and the Puglia Region, organised the Notte della taranta (Taranta Night)1, a homage to the Puglia community present in the city.

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Music instrument making and distribution centre

Bologna has a big tradition of luthiers, whose technical and handcraft ability transformed the city in an important instrument making centre at the beginning of the Sixteenth century. The masterpieces and the instruments made by the luthiers can be seen in some workshops that are still active and in museums (International Music Museum and Library of Bologna, Town Museums of Medicina and of Pieve di Cento).

In 1853 in Budrio, a small town not far from the city, a furnace-man who loved music invented nearly by chance the ocarina, a curious music instrument made of earthenware, which can boast a museum dedicated to it that is unique in the world.

Furthermore, in the churches of Bologna it is also possible to admire wooden choirs decorated with masterpieces of inlaid work – for example in the churches of San Petronio e San Domenico –, which testify, together with the old organs (now perfectly restored thanks to important restoration works), century-old choir traditions. The Piazza Maggiore basilica preserves the oldest still active organ in the world, which was built in 1470.

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Promotion of traditional and folk music and of their performers, in dialect

Since 1990, the University of Bologna organises the “Sounds from the World” Festival, that welcomes traditional artists and music from every part of the world, which the Italian public hasn’t often the possibility of appreciating. In the 2005 edition the Festival welcomed xylophone players from the island of Karpatos (Greece) and country and rural music players from Burkina Faso, together with other concerts dedicated to Italian oral tradition repertoires, scarcely known outside the geographical area they belong to. The repertoires presented testify the complex stratification of elements of different provenance, noticeable in Italian folk music, and the passed reciprocal influence of oral and written traditions of the music culture. Bologna hosts also many folk and traditional music schools, among which there are the Folk School “Ivan Illich”, established in 1992, which pays particular attention to situations of social marginality and is characterised by the activities carried out on the territory, by the formulation and promotion of a new cultural model, that encourages the development of the individual through the valorisation of choices and diversity, and the Dialect Company of Bologna “I Felsinei”, that operates with the aim of spreading and favouring the development of the dialect theatre production of Bologna through theatre performances and music plays.

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Inspiration for musicians and composers

“Bologna the learned”, “Bologna the fat”, arcades, hills, very old traditions and a multicultural present are only some of the expressions that bind the city of Emilia to the artistic imagination of poets and songwriters. Such images can be found in the lyrics of the most famous representatives of Italian pop music, like Francesco Guccini, Lucio Dalla and Francesco De Gregori, who masterfully interpret the typical, characteristic, but also controversial aspects of the city.

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Cultural locations for entertainment and music shows (squares, gardens, open-air auditoriums)

One of the main characteristics of the cultural events of Bologna, most of which are addressed to a young public and take place in the open air, is the free entrance.

If there is something that Bologna really doesn't lack, it is locations for music performances. There are various theatres – among which the Europa Auditorium, the biggest theatre of the Emilia-Romagna Region, the Teatro Comunale (Municipal Theatre), the Manzoni Theatre, the Apsidal Room of Santa Lucia (which is the assembly hall of the University of Bologna), and the Bossi Hall of the “G.B. Martini” Conservatory – and locations for concerts in the open air, such as the Terrace of the Modern Art Gallery and the Terrace of the “Arena del Sole” theatre.

Bologna can count on a series of architectonic resources, such as squares and parks, that become ideal locations for concerts, especially during the summer. Among the most important ones there are the Arena “Parco Nord”, where the “MTV Day festival”, a series of free concerts that every year attract thousands of young people from all parts of Italy, has now been organised for 8 years running; the Giardini del Baraccano (Baraccano Gardens) and the Giardini Margherita (Margaret Gardens), which every year host cultural events and performances.

Last but not least, the most beautiful Squares of the city, like Piazza Maggiore and Piazza Santo Stefano, main locations for summer cultural festivals organised by the City Council.

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