(Translated by Natalina Tassone tasnat@live.it)
 
Time and history start living again through the music in Ferramonti,Tarsia. The former concentration camp lives again thanks to the musical project "Tribute to Memory",on stage last Wednesday,seen and appreciated by a selected and qualified audience,including the Mayor of Tarsia,Antonio Scaglione,and the captain of the nearby police station of San Marco Argentano,Rocco Taurasi.
The whole thing took place with the help of Francesco Panebianco,president of the "Museum of Memory Foundation",who in a short period of time organized an evening which goes beyond the conventional canons of music. As a matter of fact,the logical melodies disappear and give space to the "prayer" of Marc Bernstein,jazz player from New York,Professor at the Music Conservatory in Esberg,Denmark,who through his "fiati" tells the story of the pain of those Jewish people who,in places such as this,lived through pain and suffering.
The support of the "Conservatorio di Cosenza" was fundamental,with the sweet voice of Luisa Bigai (coordinator of the department of song and musical theater),with the "sospiri" of Nicola Pisani (director of the jazz department),with the rythm of the double bass player Carlo Cimino and the melodies of the very young cello player Stefano Amato. Everything served to create a unique and ancestral atmosphere.
A "melodic narration" which moves the soul's chords and emulates the cry of the dispossessed through a crescendo of notes which ,in Ferramonti,sets an important page of cultural history for ever.
Stefano Amato,born in the nearby Spezzano Albanese,explains: The New York jazz performer,well known and admired on an international level,in occasion of his trip in Calabria to hold concerts and also a master in jazz in the city of Paola,expressed his desire to perform in the Ferramonti area. The board members of the "Festival di Paola" (continues Stefano Amato) are people with whom I've been sharing an artistic interest for a long time,so together we worked to organize everything,under the always valuable supervision of Nicola Pisani and Maria Luisa Bigai,professors at the music academy of Cosenza,which took active part in the event.

Bernstein,whose family emigrated to the United States during the first world conflict and following the Jewish persecutions of the 1930-40s,was very interested in visiting the camp and the annexed museum without fearing to show certain emotions which are surely at the root of the emotional performance that took place. In an area that directly witnessed the historical and cultural processes which during the 1900s deeply changed one people's destiny and that of he entire human race,according to ideological,political and philosophical roots,the musical ideal tonight was that of putting on an avant-gard performance that would speak of the degeneration of those years. Musical fragments of old Hebrew songs,known since the Old Testament,have represented the initial expression and the reelaboration of the musical context within which we moved. The total denial of human values during the second world war gave the inspiration for the dissolution aspect of the music we performed. Starting from Bernstein's initial solo which showed the loneliness of modern man towards the moral defeat of those years,the other instruments entered reelaborating and juxtaposing the initial idea of "solo",almost as witness of the ferocity of the extermination,the sadness of the Jewish people who were deported because of some crazy political idea,while the whole world watched impotent,often without really knowing what was going on.

The texts about the Holocaust,read and enacted by Maria Luisa Bigai,inspired the dynamics of the structure which slowly returned to the silence from which it originated,with another solo by the New York saxophonist,this time supported by the double bass of Carlo Cimino who doesn't leave him alone,almost as if to say that the whole world is now looking back,with the hope that the sparks of memory will ever be put off by the noises of modern age. The same message comes to mind with the words of Panebianco,president of Ferramonti's association,in his speech of final greetings and thanks:"Remember not to repeat". Deepest thanks to the people who gave life to tonight's event."