Conferences and Seminars – Page 5 – Fondazione Giorgio Cini

Seminar “The Greater Mediterranean, its History and its Present”

The Mediterranean has once again become the centre of the world’s geopolitical dynamics. From the Italian perspective, we speak of the Mediterranean and the ‘Greater Mediterranean’, which is a broader horizon converging more towards the ancient sea. Here the political aspects are complex and manifold: from Exclusive Economic Zones and the sustainable exploitation of marine resources to communications not only by sea but also by computer, the use of renewable resources, tourism as viewed on a Mediterranean-wide scale, the movement of people, war emergencies as well as national and international security issues.

Italy measures itself against all this from day to day. This is the norm for a country that lies at the heart of the Mediterranean. And behind the present lies a long history in which Italy has played a major role for centuries. A history in which special significance has been attached to Venice, the Venetian state and civilisation for centuries. In the history of the Mediterranean, Venice is indeed a key protagonist. It started out from a remote point in the Mediterranean space; it expanded and integrated into it, and then it dominated the eastern part of the sea with its navy and trade, representing a gateway between the Orient and Europe. Indeed, it is in Venice that the Greater Mediterranean finds its most remote link.

Setting out from these assumptions, it is worth questioning how much today’s reality is mirrored in the history of the Mediterranean and that of Venetian Italy. And to what extent these histories are reappearing in renewed forms in today’s geopolitical dynamics. These are questions that we shall attempt to answer in the seminar The Greater Mediterranean: its History and its Present, organised by the Institute for the History of the Venetian State and Society.

Seminario “Il Mediterraneo allargato tra storia e attualità”

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Il Mediterraneo è tornato ad essere il centro delle dinamiche geopolitiche del mondo. Dalla prospettiva italiana si parla di Mediterraneo e di Mediterraneo allargato, che è un orizzonte più ampio, che converge verso l’antico mare. Qui gli aspetti politici sono complessi e si stanno

moltiplicando: dalle Zone economiche esclusive e dallo sfruttamento sostenibile del mare alle comunicazioni non solo marittime ma anche informatiche, all’uso delle risorse rinnovabili, al turismo visto su scala mediterranea, alla circolazione delle persone, alle emergenze belliche, alla

sicurezza nazionale e internazionale. L’Italia si misura con tutto questo di giorno in giorno. Si tratta della normalità per un paese che di per sé costituisce il centro del Mediterraneo. E dietro al presente c’è una lunga storia, in cui l’Italia ha ricoperto per secoli un ruolo fondamentale. Una

storia in cui un particolare significato ha riguardato per secoli Venezia, il suo Stato e la sua civiltà. Nella storia del Mediterraneo, Venezia è infatti una protagonista. Essa nasce in un punto remoto dello spazio mediterraneo, si espande e vi si integra, domina la parte orientale del mare con la sua marineria e i suoi commerci, rappresenta la giuntura tra l’Oriente e l’Europa. A Venezia il Mediterraneo allargato trova il suo nesso più remoto.

Partendo da questi presupposti è il caso di interrogarsi quanto la realtà di oggi si specchia nella storia del Mediterraneo, dell’Italia di Venezia. E quanto queste storie si ripresentano in forme aggiornate nelle dinamiche odierne. Sono domande a cui si cercherà di rispondere nel Seminario Il Mediterraneo allargato tra storia e attualità, a cura dell’Istituto per la Storia della Società e dello Stato Veneziano.

Seminar: The conservation of company memories: the new horizon of digital archives

The seminar, held by the Fondazione Giorgio Cini ARCHiVe Centre and the Italgas Heritage Lab, stems from the desire to promote a wide-ranging exchange on potential new approaches to the issues of digitalising company archives. The day will include talks by professors from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, the director of the College of Humanities of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), representatives of Italian Ministry of Culture, the ICAR (Central Archive Institute) and PARER (Archive Hub of Emilia Romagna), with a focus on the case studies of the historical archives of Intesa San Paolo, the Emilia Romagna Region and the Heritage Lab of Italgas: the new centre that deals with the digitalisation and enhancement of the archives of the historic Turin-based company.

Franz Schubert ammiratore di Beethoven. Trii, opus 99 and opus 100 (1827-28)

Franz Schubert ammiratore di Beethoven.

Trii, opus 99 and opus 100 (1827-28)

Director: Pedro Memelsdorff

Seminar

20-23 June 2023, Giorgio Cini Foundation

To participate as an auditor, please contact the secretariat at: musica.antica@cini.it

Concert

Friday 23 June 2023, 6 p.m., Sala degli Arazzi

Admission free subject to availability

Between 1827 and 1828, moved by the death of Beethoven and aware of the fragility of his own health, in addition to the lieder from the Schwanengesang, the young Franz Schubert composed some of his greatest instrumental masterpieces, including the three late sonatas for fortepiano, the famous string quintet with two cellos, sketches for the tenth symphony, and the two trios op. 99 and 100 for fortepiano, violin and cello. The latter are the focus of the seminar that the Fondazione Giorgio Cini wishes to dedicate to the great Viennese composer. The first of these (op. 99, in B flat major) was published posthumously only in 1836, while the second (op. 100, in E flat major) saw the light of day, as well as its concert première, a month before the composer’s death in November 1828. Almost a ‘wordless lieder’, the slow tempos of those trios have marked the Schubertian canon ever since. The two compositions will be compared to Beethoven’s piano and string trios opus 70 and opus 97.

The teachers will be Andreas Staier and Amandine Beyer. Staier is probably the greatest living historical keyboardist, with an impressive repertoire ranging from the late Renaissance to Romanticism. His interpretations of Schubert are among the most famous in the world. Amandine Beyer is one of the most innovative and virtuosic historical violinists of recent generations: hers include some of the most remarkable solo and orchestral recordings, from Corelli, Bach and Vivaldi to Boccherini, Haydn and Mozart.

The seminar includes the participation of a group of scholarship winners, selected by means of an international contest, specifically two trios of musicians (each consisting of a forte-pianist, a cellist and a violinist) and a fortepianist who will perform in the customary final recital concert.

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Concert

Friday 23 June 2023, 6 p.m., Sala degli Arazzi

Admission free subject to availability

Musicians:

Basel Piano Trio

Leo Appel, violin

Pau Fernandez Benlloch, fortepiano

Blai Bosser Toca, cello

Philos Trio

Hyngun Cho, cello

Jean-Christophe Dijoux, fortepiano

Liv Heym, violin

and

Arash Rokni, fortepiano

Musicians will be directed by Andreas Staier and Amandine Beyer.

Workshop “Research-Led Performance. Conducting Twentieth-Century Music for Ensemble”

The Research-Led Performance cycle resumes with a workshop for young conductors, organised by the Institute for Music, coordinated by Marco Angius with the participation of soloists from the Orchestra of Padua and the Veneto Region, dedicated to the conducting of chamber ensembles: a formation varying in number and type of instrument that has characterised musical production ever since Arnold Schoenberg’s Kammersymphonie (1906). Six young conductors who have shown interest and aptitude for this repertoire will be selected by means of a call for applications. Alongside Schoenberg’s pioneering composition, two works by Italian composers who established a long-distance dialogue with the Viennese master will be tackled: Serenata No. 2 by Bruno Maderna and Hölderlin: Epilogo by Giacomo Manzoni. Practical sessions will alternate with theoretical ones, held by Gianmario Borio and Francisco Rocca. At the end of the work, a number of students will demonstrate the outcomes of the workshop in a public event.

Stories of Creative Women in the Twentieth Century from Russia to Europe

The Institute of Theatre and Opera hosts two meetings in the cycle Stories of Creative Women in the Twentieth Century from Russia to Europe organised by Ca’ Foscari University in collaboration with the LEI (Leadership, Energy, Entrepreneurship) project. The initiative, divided into nine thematic encounters, is dedicated to an in-depth biographical and artistic investigation of emblematic female characters from the twentieth century. Retracing their narratives will allow us to reflect on the overcoming of both identitary and national boundaries.

Germano Celant: Venice

The conference, organised at the Giorgio Cini Foundation in collaboration with the Studio Celant as part of the thematic Study Days: Germano Celant. Chronology of a Militant Critic, aims to provide an initial survey of what Germano Celant did in Venice, focusing on and emphasising those initiatives which, once put into perspective, turned out to constitute founding moments in his career.

The history of Celant’s activity in the city of Venice begins in the mid-1960s, when still in his twenties. Thanks to the relationship of esteem and trust with Umbro Apollonio, he wrote for the magazine La Biennale di Venezia. Rassegna delle arti contemporanee. From the Biennale, he later received assignments that were fundamental for his emergence, curating the exhibition Ambiente/Arte: dal Futurismo alla Body Art (1976), crucial for the achievement of his critical maturity, and later Futuro Presente Passato at the XLVII International Art Exhibition. Venice Biennale (1997). Of the 1980s and 1990s, mention should be made of his decisive contribution to the realisation of Il Corso del Coltello: a performative work resulting from the collaboration between Claes Oldenburg, Coosje van Bruggen and Frank O. Gehry, staged in 1985; his collaboration with Pontus Hultén on the occasion of the exhibition Futurismo & Futurismi (1986), with whom he later curated Arte Italiana. Presenze 1900–1945 (1989), both held at Palazzo Grassi; with Michael Govan the exhibition Mondrian e De Stijl. L’ideale moderno (1990) at the Giorgio Cini Foundation and with Giandomenico Romanelli Anselm Kiefer. Himmel-Herde (1997) at the Museo Correr. In the 1980s, his relationship with Emilio Vedova intensified, leading him to the role of curator of the Fondazione Emilio e Annabianca Vedova: a place where he also held major exhibitions. For Fondazione Prada, he curated exhibitions in the spaces of the Fondazione Giorgio Cini such as the Thomas Demand solo show (2007) and the John Wesley retrospective (2009), up until the renovation and opening of Ca’ Corner della Regina, where he curated the exhibition When Attitudes Become Form. Bern 1969/Venice 2013 (2013), which was to make its mark on the international scene by virtue of the fervent debate it provoked. In 2019, the same spaces would host the exhibition that Celant dedicated to the career of Jannis Kounellis. He was to return to the Cini Foundation in 2013 with the Marc Quinn exhibition – featuring a selection of over fifty works including sculptures, paintings, drawings and other art objects by one of the best-known exponents of the Young British Artists generation – and in 2019 with Emilio Isgrò, a key anthological exhibition exploring his career from his early erasures in 1964 to the historical volumes of the Enciclopedia Treccani (1970) and the ethnic volumes of the Ottoman codices (2010).

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Performing Vivaldi on the basis of his manuscripts. Seminar with Federico Maria Sardelli

The Italian Antonio Vivaldi Institute proposes a series of seminars aimed at instrumentalists, singers, conductors and musicologists who wish to study the performance practices of Vivaldi’s music in depth. The encounters focus on the study of his original manuscripts and the many performance indications contained therein.
On Tuesday 14 February at the Fondazione Ugo e Olga Levi, Federico Maria Sardelli’s book Il volto di Vivaldi will be presented.

Egida Sartori and Laura Alvini Early Music Seminars Viola bastarda and the Art of Italian-Style Diminution (1580-1630)

Viola bastarda and the Art of Italian-Style Diminution (1580-1630)

Director: Pedro Memelsdorff

Seminar

2-6 November 2022, Fondazione Giorgio Cini

To participate as auditors, please contact the secretariat at: musica.antica@cini.it

Concluding Concert

Saturday 5 November, 5.30 p.m., “Lo Squero” Auditorium

Admission free subject to availability

In Italian treatises or music collections of the late 16th and early 17th century, the term alla bastarda generally refers to a particular technique of ornamenting (or diminishing) vocal compositions with rapid virtuosic passages over a large range, performed on instruments such as the organ, harp, lute or viola. Viola bastarda, on the other hand, denoted – or appears to have denoted – a type of viola da gamba particularly well-suited, by tuning or constitution, to the performance of these diminutions. Considering the importance attached to this technique by numerous historic composers – such as Girolamo Dalla Casa, Giovanni Bassano, Riccardo and Francesco Rognoni, Orazio and Francesco Maria Bassani and Vincenzo Bonizzi –both the relative scarcity of surviving compositions and the rarity of modern historiographic writings on the subject are surprising.

This particular edition of the Egida Sartori and Laura Alvini Early Music Seminars sees M. Paolo Pandolfo, a well-known specialist and teacher at the Schola Cantorum in Basel, conducting a group of five violists accompanied by harpsichord, and selected through an international call for scholarships, in the exploration of this repertoire.

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There will also be a public concert (free admission but booking required) at the Squero Auditorium on Saturday, 5 November, at 5.30 p.m

The seminar participants conducted by Paolo Pandolfo perform at the final concert.

Musicians:

Rosamund Ender, viola da gamba

Thomas Fields, viola da gamba

Stephen Moran, viola da gamba

Vanessa Hunt Russell, viola da gamba

Gaetano Simone, viola da gamba

Nicola Lamon, harpsichord

Conference Venini: Light 1921-1985

The Venini: Light 1921-1985 exhibition is the result of a long-term research programme promoted by Le Stanze del Vetro project, which since 2012 has offered opportunities to study the history of the renowned Venini glassworks, always accompanied by a conference organised by the Glass Study Centre.

This year the conference focuses on the theme of lighting at the Murano company. Since the first post-war period the glassworks made a key contribution to the growth and development of this specific sector, both nationally and internationally, definitively freeing lighting technology from its original, merely decorative conception. The technical refinements and innovations pioneered by the Venini are both small and large scale and cover a very broad typological spectrum: from the creation of various types of pendant luminaires and wall lamps to ceiling lighting installations for cruise ships, hotels and railway stations. The numerous projects for public and private commissions also enabled artists of the calibre of Vittorio Zecchin, Napoleone Martinuzzi, Tomaso Buzzi and Carlo Scarpa to express their creativity in various stimulating areas.

The list of designers and architects was further enhanced over time with other renowned figures, such as Gio Ponti, Franco Albini, Massimo Vignelli, Alessandro Mendini and Ettore Sottsass, to name but a few of the those who contributed to the creation of some of the most innovative, prized objects and models, made thanks to the technical experiments that have always been a hallmark of the Venetian company.

With the contribution of glass specialists and art historians, the conference will explore some of the stages and moments that determined Venini’s success in this specific segment of production, from the 1920s to the present day. This will also involve analysing some particularly striking installations and projects, such as the famous “velario” glass roof of the Palazzo Grassi inner courtyard in Venice and the polyhedron installation designed by architect Carlo Scarpa for the Italia 61 exhibition in Turin.