Orchestra di Piazza Vittorio is a well-known

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

multi-ethnic orchestra that was created in

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in 2002. It is also the subject of a 2006 film of the same name.

History

The Orchestra di Piazza Vittorio begins in the Esquilino neighborhood in

. This colorful and largely populated by immigrants area of Rome revolves around a square that is a hub for various cultures, sounds and musicians from all corners of the world: Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II, also known as Piazza Vittorio. This Piazza inspired musician Mario Tronco, of the

Piccola Orchestra Avion Travel Piccola Orchestra Avion Travel (also known as Avion Travel) is an Italian musical group, formed in Caserta in 1980. The group was named after a travel agency situated in Caserta. They were discovered by Caterina Caselli. In 2000 the band won the ...

, and filmmaker Agostino Ferrente to reunite some of these extraordinary performers, each one unique in origin, instrument, and musical experience, in a group, or better an orchestra, that plays and reinvents music from all over the world with an energy that audiences take away with them after each concert. The project was carried out through Apollo 11, a community organization founded in 2001 by Tronco, Ferrente, and other artists and volunteers with the goal of rescuing the Apollo, a vintage movie theater, from being turned into a bingo hall. The documentary ''L'Orchestra di Piazza Vittorio'' (2006) by Agostino Ferrente tells the story of this very unusual musical ensemble. The movie has since been successfully screened at many international festivals, including the

Locarno International Film Festival The Locarno Film Festival is an annual film festival, held every August in Locarno, Switzerland. Founded in 1946, the festival screens films in various competitive and non-competitive sections, including feature-length narrative, documentary, ...

in Switzerland and the

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. In Italy it is distributed by Luckyred, and has won several awards such as the Nastro d'Argento and the Globo D’Oro as best documentary, both in 2007. Netflix is the US distributor of the movie that has also been released in many other countries around the world. L’Orchestra di Piazza Vittorio has played over 300 concerts in the five continents, often after the screening of Ferrente’s movie, a format referred to as "cineconcerto" (film + concert). The Orchestra has recorded five albums until now: the first (self-titled) has received the "German Record Critics' Award" in 2005 in the World Music section. The album ''Il Flauto Magico'' was co-produced by the legendary

Bob Ezrin Robert Alan Ezrin (born March 25, 1949) is a Canadian music producer and keyboardist, best known for his work with Lou Reed, Alice Cooper, Aerosmith, Kiss, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, Peter Gabriel, Andrea Bocelli and Phish. As of 2010, Ezrin's car ...

. In the summer of 2009, the Orchestra di Piazza Vittorio made a tour in Europe with their rendition of Mozart’s ''

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'', which debuted in

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Orchestra members

*Houcine Ataa (Tunisia) –

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or withou ...

*Fausto Bottoni (Italy) –

trombone The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate ...

euphonium The euphonium is a medium-sized, 3 or 4-valve, often compensating, conical-bore, tenor-voiced brass instrument that derives its name from the Ancient Greek word ''euphōnos'', meaning "well-sounding" or "sweet-voiced" ( ''eu'' means "well" o ...

*Peppe D’Argenzio (Italy) – baritone and

soprano sax The soprano saxophone is a higher-register variety of the saxophone, a woodwind instrument invented in the 1840s. The soprano is the third-smallest member of the saxophone family, which consists (from smallest to largest) of the soprillo, sop ...

, clarinet *Evandro Cesar Dos Reis (Brazil) – vocals, classical and

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gu ...

, cavaquinho *Sanjay Kansa Banik (India) –

tabla A tabla, bn, তবলা, prs, طبلا, gu, તબલા, hi, तबला, kn, ತಬಲಾ, ml, തബല, mr, तबला, ne, तबला, or, ତବଲା, ps, طبله, pa, ਤਬਲਾ, ta, தபலா, te, తబల� ...

*Awalys Ernesto “El Kiri” López Maturell (Cuba) – drums, congas *Omar López Valle (Cuba) –

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...

, flugelhorn *Zsuzsanna Krasznai (Hungary) –

cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G ...

*John Maida (United States) –

violin The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...

*Gaia Orsoni (Italy) –

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*Carlos Paz Duque (Ecuador) – vocals, Andean flute *Pino Pecorelli (Italy) –

double bass The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox additions such as the octobass). Similar i ...

electric bass The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and s ...

*Leandro Piccioni (Italy) –

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...

*El Hadji “Pap” Yeri Samb (Senegal) – vocals, djembe, dundun,

sabar The sabar is a traditional drum from Senegal that is also played in the Gambia. It is associated with Wolof and Serer people.marimba The marimba () is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars that are struck by mallets. Below each bar is a resonator pipe that amplifies particular harmonics of its sound. Compared to the xylophone, the timbre ...

, congas,

percussions A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Excl ...

timpani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a membrane called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally ...

*“Kaw” Dialy Mady Sissoko (Senegal) – vocals, kora *Ziad Trabelsi (Tunisia) –

oud , image=File:oud2.jpg , image_capt=Syrian oud made by Abdo Nahat in 1921 , background= , classification= * String instruments *Necked bowl lutes , hornbostel_sachs=321.321-6 , hornbostel_sachs_desc=Composite chordophone sounded with a plectrum , ...

, vocals *Mario Tronco (Italy) – Fender Rhodes *with Sylvie Lewis (UK/USA) – vocals, guitar

Former members

*Eszter Nagypal (Hungary) – cello *Giuseppe Smaldino (Italy) –

french horn The French horn (since the 1930s known simply as the horn in professional music circles) is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. The double horn in F/B (technically a variety of German horn) is the horn most ...

*Mohammed Bilal (India) –

harmonium The pump organ is a type of free-reed organ that generates sound as air flows past a vibrating piece of thin metal in a frame. The piece of metal is called a reed. Specific types of pump organ include the reed organ, harmonium, and melodeon. Th ...

castanets Castanets, also known as ''clackers'' or ''palillos'', are a percussion instrument (idiophone), used in Spanish, Kalo, Moorish, Ottoman, Italian, Sephardic, Swiss, and Portuguese music. In ancient Greece and ancient Rome there was a simil ...

*Amrit Hussain (India) – tabla

Discography

* Studio albums: **''L'Orchestra di Piazza Vittorio'' (2003) **''Sona'' (2006) **''L'Isola di Legno'' (2013) **''Credo'' (2016) *Live albums **''Il Flauto Magico Secondo L'Orchestra di Piazza Vittorio'' (2010)

References

External links

Official website of the Orchestra di Piazza Vittorio

MySpace profile for the Orchestra di Piazza Vittorio

Images of the Orchestra on Flickr
{{DEFAULTSORT:Orchestra Di Piazza Vittorio Italian orchestras