This year again, thanks to the collaboration with Centro Didattico Produzione Musica Europe, Bergamo Jazz offers the series of educational events ‘Let’s Meet Jazz’: an important opportunity to introduce young people to a musical language rich in artistic content and bearer of universal messages of dialogue between different cultures, which are more necessary than ever today. 24 schools from the city and province have joined the initiative, which will take place at the Auditorium in Piazza della Libertà in the mornings from Tuesday 18 to Thursday 20 and then on Monday, March 24. 84 classes are involved, with approximately 1,900 students in total.
Claudio Angeleri, President of CDpM, specifies in this regard: ‘The educational section of Bergamo Jazz created by CDpM is one of the most important projects in the national jazz festival landscape. It is, first of all, the first in Italy. The first edition dates back to 1990, and over these years, more than 30,000 primary and secondary school students in the area have discovered jazz and improvisation this way. It’s not just about concert-lessons, but choral and body percussion workshops that we conduct in schools throughout the year together with the Municipality of Bergamo. The Bergamo Jazz festival is the final stage where the same boys and girls join professional musicians, playing and explaining to their peers the characteristics and values of this music.’
The first to be involved will be secondary school students, who in the first three mornings will be able to discover the secrets of the art of improvisation through the performance of pieces proposed by Giulio Visibelli (flute and soprano sax), Gabriele Comeglio (alto sax and clarinet), Claudio Angeleri (piano), Paola Milzani (voice), Marco Esposito (bass) and Matteo Milesi (drums), with contributions from musicologist Maurizio Franco.
These meetings aim to introduce students to improvisation through various interactive examples that trace the evolution of jazz from its African-American origins to the present day. It’s a journey in constant change, capable of capturing and developing in real-time the creative qualities of its protagonists (from Louis Armstrong to John Coltrane and beyond), based on the different cultures that jazz has come into contact with. Improvisation, that is, the ability to autograph any musical material in real-time according to each musician’s personality, is certainly one of the typical elements of jazz. It is what differentiates it most from music of European tradition, in which two distinct figures have crystallized: that of the composer and that of the performer. In jazz, on the contrary, both coexist in the same individual who invents, interprets, dialogues with other musicians in real-time, making the music unique and unrepeatable. However, improvisation is not improvised, but a rigorous discipline based on very precise rules to be followed, which at the same time are reinvented. The meetings designed by CDpM for Bergamo Jazz intend to highlight these through the direct experience of the young people.
On Monday, March 24, it will be the turn of primary school students with ‘Everybody Wants to Be a Cat’, a title behind which hide some jazz and gospel classics such as ‘Amazing Grace’, ‘When the Saints Go Marching In’, songs from Walt Disney film soundtracks like ‘Cruella De Vil’, and compositions by Duke Ellington like ‘Come Sunday’. The boys and girls will be co-protagonists of the instrumental performances with some melodic riffs performed according to the call and response technique and some rhythmic claves inserted in the proposed instrumental and choral arrangement. On the stage of the Auditorium in Piazza della Libertà, the Gospel Choir of the primary school of IC Santa Lucia in Bergamo directed by Gabriele Capitanio, the Marchin’ Band of the Primary School of IC Camozzi in Bergamo directed by Lorenzo Roncelli, along with Claudio Angeleri, Paola Milzani, Gabriele Comeglio, Marco Esposito and Matteo Milesi will perform on this occasion.
