Luisa Del Giudice, founder and president of the Los Angeles-based Italian Oral History Institute, gives a lecture tonight, titled "Italian Traditional Music: What For?", as part of an Italian culture series co-sponsored by York.
Right: Luisa Del Giudice
Del Giudice, a scholar of Italian folk and oral culture, will give the lecture downtown at the Istituto Italiano di Cultura at 6:30pm. Following her talk will be a musical performance by Cosmo and Damiano Femia on guitar, tambourine, Calabrian organetto (folk organ) and fischietto (whistle). The evening is hosted by York Professor Carmela Canzonieri.
Giudice’s lecture is the second in a series of talks and musical performances by well known Italian-Canadian musicians, artists and scholars called Meet the Artists: Canadian Musicians, Italian Voices. It is sponsored by the Mariano Elia Chair in Italian Canadian Studies at York University and the Istituto Italiano di Cultura.
Last Wednesday, jazz bassist Roberto Occhipinti launched the series with a performance that traced his musical journey and his relationship with Italy.
Coming up
Jan. 29 – Conductor and pianist Mario Bernardi. Evening hosted by York Prof. Elio Costa
Feb. 7 – Baritone Brett Polegato, jazz vocalist and composer Rita di Ghent and jazz pianist Norm Amadio. Evening hosted by writer Maria Cioni, author of Spaghetti Western: How My Father Brought Italian Food to the West
Feb. 14 – Guitarist, composer and producer Dominic Mancuso and singer Marisa Buffone. Evening hosted by Jana Vizmuller Zocco, director of York’s Mariano Elia Chair in Italian Canadian Studies
The series is presented in English. Admission is free. Events take place between 6:30 and 8:30pm at the Istituto Italiano di Cultura at 496 Huron St., Toronto. Receptions follow each presentation.