BERGAMO FILM MEETING opens BERGAMO JAZZ
Bergamo Jazz offers many concerts and more. The lead-up to the Festival, scheduled from March 20 to 23, is marked by several significant events that connect music with other arts, starting with cinema. This year again, there’s the traditional handover from Bergamo Film Meeting, which on its final day offers two events at the Auditorium in Piazza della Libertà: the screening of the film Knife in the Water by Roman Polanski (2:15 PM) and the live musical accompaniment for Töchter (Two Sisters) by Ernst Lubitsch by multi-instrumentalist Danilo Gallo (5:30 PM).
Knife in the Water is Roman Polanski’s first feature film, made when he was not yet thirty, and one of the most successful directorial debuts in cinema history: it was presented at the Venice International Film Festival, where it won the FIPRESCI Prize, and was the first Polish film to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film (it lost to Fellini’s 8½). The soundtrack is by Krzysztof Komeda, a Polish pianist and composer considered one of the most original exponents of European jazz in the 1960s. His sextet, which included trumpeter Tomasz Stanko among others, remains one of the most valuable and innovative formations of that period. Komeda, who passed away in 1969, also wrote the music for Innocent Sorcerers by Andrzej Wajda and Good Bye, Till Tomorrow by Janusz Morgenstern, as well as Cul-de-sac, The Fearless Vampire Killers and Rosemary’s Baby by Polanski himself.
Loosely inspired by Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, Two Sisters is a 1920 film belonging to the romantic comedy genre but with surreal traits: Ernst Lubitsch, one of the masters of German cinema, set it in an unspecified village in Southern Bavaria, telling the love story, marked by a whirlwind of misunderstandings, of a young man and two sisters, one beautiful, the other unapproachable due to her ugliness.
Danilo Gallo is one of the most versatile and highly regarded Italian bassists, at ease in various stylistic contexts. He naturally ranges from jazz to rock, from improvised music to collaborations that see music interacting with other disciplines such as theater, dance, poetry, and cinema. He is the leader or co-leader of internationally renowned groups such as Dark Dry Tears, Gallo The Roosters, Guano Padano, The Last Coat of Pink, and the Lacy In The Sky with Diamonds project (with Roberto Ottaviano and Ferdinando Faraò).
Exhibition FILIPPO SIEBANECK: A MAN OF CULTURE FOR BERGAMO
On Wednesday, March 19 (6 PM; open to the public from 6:30 PM), the exhibition opens at Donizetti Studio, opposite the theater’s ticket office, Filippo Siebaneck: A Man of Culture for Bergamo: through the display of photographs depicting him with great artists, posters, and documents, the Donizetti Theatre Foundation and Bergamo Jazz, together with the International Piano Festival of Brescia and Bergamo and the Friends of the Accademia Carrara Association, intend to commemorate, 25 years after his passing, Filippo Siebaneck, who for many decades was an extraordinary figure who marked the cultural life of the city of Bergamo and beyond. Specifically, Filippo Siebaneck collaborated in the realization of numerous initiatives: International Jazz Festival, International Piano Festival of Brescia and Bergamo, numerous art exhibitions, including the one on Giovan Battista Moroni in 1979, Miniature Treasures in 1995, and the Bicentennial of the Accademia Carrara in 1996. Filippo Siebaneck distinguished himself as a person who sought in every way to create and enhance an image of Bergamo as a city of art. As President of the Autonomous Tourism Agency, but even before holding this position, Filippo Siebaneck was – along with a group of jazz enthusiasts, including journalist Paolo Arzano – one of the driving forces behind the International Jazz Festival, of which Bergamo Jazz is the natural heir. Running from 1969 to 1978 and then for two more editions in 1982 and 1983, the Festival hosted, at the Donizetti Theatre and later at the Sports Palace, illustrious names such as Julian “Cannonball” Adderley, Dizzy Gillespie, Maynard Ferguson, Lionel Hampton, Keith Jarrett, Max Roach, Gerry Mulligan, Art Blakey, Charles Mingus, Herbie Hancock, Archie Shepp, Sam Rivers, Elvin Jones, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Chick Corea, Lee Konitz, Freddie Hubbard, and many others.
The exhibition will also be open from Thursday, March 20 to Sunday, March 23, from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM.
