BabelebaB, First National Festival of Intercultural Choirs

11 choirs and 400 singers arriving from different cities in Italy will join the Coro Millecolori of Scampia in a great new event promoted and financed by the Municipality of Napoli as part of the Naples City of Music project.

Saturday 14 and Sunday 15 October

Music and singing as instruments of union between peoples in an extraordinary and spectacular crossroads of cultures. Promoted and financed by the Municipality of Naples as part of the project Napoli Città della Musica and organized by the Rete dei Cori Interculturali d'Italia, with the territorial support of the volunteer association Millecolori, the VIII Municipality and the EAV in collaboration with Ravello Creative LAB, BabelebaB – First National Festival of Intercultural Choirs arrives in the city on Saturday 14 and Sunday 15 October. An unprecedented event with eleven choirs, born with the aim of creating intercultural inclusion, coming from seven Italian cities and composed of Italians and foreigners of all ages and abilities, new citizens and asylum seekers, who meet in the city of Partenope. A great project that was presented at Palazzo San Giacomo in the Sala Giunta by the Mayor of Naples Gaetano Manfredi, together with Ferdinando Tozzi, delegate of the Mayor of Naples for the music and audiovisual industry; Father Eraldo Cacchione SJ, coordinator of the Millecolori Choir of Scampia; Sister Marisa Pitrella, director of the Diocesan Caritas of Naples; Alessandro Portelli, one of the founders of oral history, English scholar, president of the Circolo Gianni Bosio.

BabelebaB starts from Babel, a metaphor of the misunderstanding between different languages ​​that is turned upside down and becomes the symbol of a happy understanding through the language and the instrument of music and choral singing, which have given life to a union of voices, to the creation of new music, to reinterpreted songs, to new knowledge of ancient cultures, following the teachings of the Spanish musician, composer, conductor and musicologist Jordi Savall who defined the new citizens as “living libraries of cultures”.

A Napoli arriveranno il Coro Cantabile (Torino); Voci dal Mondo insieme a La Carovana della Musica (Venice); Canto Sconfinato (Pordenone); Le Chemin des femmes (Modena) insieme a Le Core (Bologna); Mikrokosmos – Coro Multietnico di Bologna; Coro Interculturale di Reggio Emilia; Coro Multiculturale Consonanze (Casalecchio di Reno – Bologna); Coro di periferia (Bologna); Coro CONfusion (Firenze); CoroIncanto Voci femminili senza confini (Roma) e Coro Romolo Balzani (Roma) e si uniranno al Coro Millecolori di Scampia per una due giorni piena di gioia, bellezza, musica, riflessioni, conoscenza, scambi e incontri di idee e culture.

Ad aprire il festival sarà il convegno “Musica e intercultura nella coralità”, in programma sabato 14 ottobre dalle 9.00 alle 13.00 negli spazi dell’Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II a Scampia. Dalle 16.00 alle 18.00, spazio alle “Improvvisazioni urbane”, prove libere e flash mob in città. La giornata si concluderà con i 400 coristi dei dodici cori in concerto sul palcoscenico allestito in Piazza Mercato, in programma dalle 21.00 alle 23.30. Domenica 15 ottobre, dalle 10.30 alle 12.30, nella stazione della Metropolitan Piscinola Scampia ci saranno i Laboratori di canto spontaneo.

The conference “Music and interculture in choral music” will be structured in three round tables. The morning of reflection and debate will open with a round table moderated by Fulvia Caruso, with the participation of Luciana Manca on “History of world-Italian choirs: genesis of a network”; Salvatore Colazzo on “Multiculture and interculture in the media era”; Alessandro Portelli who will dialogue with Laura Scomparcini (Canto Sconfinato – Pordenone) on “Roma Forestiera and a case of inclusion and empowerment through the experience of intercultural choirs”; Alessandro Cosentino will dialogue with Paula Gallardo and Alina Varzaru (CoroIncanto Voci femminile senza confini – Rome) on “An integrated method for intercultural musical pedagogy”. The second round table “Interculture in scores: hybridizations between ancient and contemporary” will be moderated by Fulvia Caruso and Luciana Manca, with the participation of Maurizio Mancini (Coro Consonanze – Bologna) and Meike Clarelli (Le Chemin des femmes – Modena). The morning will close with the round table “Female protagonism and practice of musical community”, moderated by Serena Facci and Simona Frasca, with contributions from Giuseppina Casarin, Maria Finica and Concepion Garcia Sanchez (Coro Voci dal Mondo – Venice), Eka Kacharava (Vie dei Canti – Rome) and Roxana Ene (Coro Romolo Balzani – Rome).

BabelebaB, together with the institutional presence of the Municipality of Naples, Naples City of Music and the University of Naples Federico II, has gathered around itself a large network of solidarity. The First National Festival of Intercultural Choirs is, in fact, realized with the contribution of the Diocesan Caritas of Naples, which coordinates free hospitality through its network of families; the Consultation of the Associations of the VIII Municipality of Naples; the Migrantes Foundation at the CEI; “Chikù” (Italian-Romani restaurant); Rete Pangea; Fondazione Progetto Arca; Angeli di Strada Villanova; Caritas Nord est- Delegazione Caritas Triveneto, the parishes and religious congregations operating in the Scampia area; and with the moral patronage of Mediterranea Onlus; Aerco Emiliano Romagnola Choirs Association and the Intercultural Center of Reggio Emilia.

Now widespread in many cities, intercultural choirs were born in response to various needs: educational needs of schools attended by many foreign children, musical curiosity towards other musical cultures, the desire to welcome and communicate with new citizens, stable migrants or asylum seekers. They have one characteristic in common: the desire to use music and singing as moments of aggregation and unity even when languages, writing, traditions are different. From this common desire and from the plurality of experiences comes the idea of ​​an annual meeting, each year in a different city, to bring the choirs to a wider audience, to exchange experiences and initiatives, to think about new musical phenomena linked to immigration. And this extraordinary journey starts from Naples.

BabelebaB was born with the objectives of testifying and promoting initiatives based on the concept that singing is the expression and promotion of an open and inclusive community, outside of any narrow sense of identity, in the spirit of contemporary complexity; stimulating through singing the recognition of individuals as fully human beings regardless of their origin and culture; spreading the power of singing in general and, in particular, choral singing, as an intense tool for sharing, free, always available and within everyone's reach; giving prominence and visibility to the generativity of well-being and fun of singing together; sharing the construction of a network between the choirs involved and between these and the communities of the territories in which they live; building moments of comparison, discovery, growth and sharing between the existing multi-ethnic choral realities and communicating outside, to the country of Italy, a message of community, solidarity and beauty in diversity; making new compositional, executive and research strategies known outside our context, also involving the new generations; promote the intangible musical heritage of the past and present, sharing old and new knowledge for the understanding of contemporaneity for the use of future generations; give the greatest possible resonance to the fact that through music it is possible to combine art, social utility and coexistence among diversities; create training and growth opportunities for existing realities and stimulate the birth of new transcultural and inclusive choirs.