Coro Manos Blancas del Friuli
S. Vito al Tagliamento
The choir, born thanks to the intuition of Maestro Claudio Abbado and the will of the Nonino family, is the first gestural choir in Italy. This particular choir interprets music by replacing voices with gestures and signs that comment on and dance to the sounds on engaging choreographies. Have you ever seen music? Sure, on a sheet of music you can read it, but the Manos Blancas choir makes the notes visible even to those unfamiliar with staves. How? With an invitation to listen to their wingbeats, their hands clothed in white gloves. The children with their white gloves, in fact, interpret the music respecting the musical characteristics of the piece and the text realized by the vocal choir that flanks the gestural one, thus promoting, through sound, movement and music, an active nonverbal communication. The recipients of this project are children and young people with difficulties expressing themselves through speech and, in particular, with hearing deficits, children and young people in situations of hardship or social disadvantage. In recent years, experiences similar to ours that have arisen in various parts of the peninsula have seen the pairing of children and young people without difficulties with gestural choir singers, thus giving rise to interesting inclusive projects.
The Manos Blancas project is inspired by the Venezuelan experience of the System of Youth Orchestras and Choirs born on the initiative of Maestro José Antonio Abreu. The particular innovation of this project consists in giving the opportunity to study music to all young people, with the main purpose of creating social cohesion. Through the practice of music, understood as a universal language, we can educate our society in the values that sustain it from its foundations: acceptance, coexistence and sharing among people of all conditions and backgrounds.
In Italy, the great Maestro Claudio Abbado was the first to try to translate these aims into the Italian musical fabric, doing his best in this regard and finding in the Nonino family concrete help. From Venezuela to S. Vito al Tagliamento, passing through Ronchi di Percoto, the journey was quite short, and it was precisely at Nostra Famiglia in San Vito al Tagliamento that, thanks to the willingness and professionalism of some of the operators, the possibility of making this unprecedented communicative and artistic modality take root in Italy as well became concrete.
Since December 2016, an unexpectedly fruitful collaboration has begun with the vocal choir Noincanto of Portogruaro: a collaboration desired and energetically promoted by maestro Renzo Fantuzzo, whom we still thank for the great and significant opportunities he has offered us. Together, for example, we participated in the fourth edition of the international review of Franciscan sacred music in Assisi, and the experience realized, besides the important artistic value, represented, also according to the boys themselves, a moment of mutual acquaintance and pleasant discovery of diversities that added together become a richness for the whole group.
The repertoire we proposed ranges from classical to contemporary song, from traditional to ethnic music, with a special attention to all those songs in which there are alive and explicit messages of peace, joy, brotherhood of which we feel supporters and carriers with our work. Concert activity held by us has taken place in prestigious venues, including the Senate of the Republic, the Municipal Theater of Ferrara, the Teatro Nuovo Giovanni da Udine, the Teatro Argentina in Rome, and the Sala Nervi in Vaticano. Noteworthy is the collaboration with the singer Mika that began on the concert in Piazza Unità in Trieste and the participation in the TV show ‘CasaMika’ broadcast in prime time on Rai 2. Among the awards received are “L’Oscar della Lirica” presented to us at the Arena of Verona on August 31, 2010 and “La Colomba della Pace” received in Rome. For eleven years, we also attended “Il Premio Nonino” as guests of Giannola and the entire Nonino family.
Alongside these successes, a source of great pride for all of us, the boys of the Manos Blancas Choir wish to testify with their activity that the impossible is within reach. The right to express oneself and participate in social life does not need all the senses: music starts from the heart with the first vital beat.
PROGRAMMA CONCERTO – Coro Manos Blancas del Friuli, Noincanto, Naonis Clarinet Ensemble
Maestro del coro Santarossa Giulia
Naonis Clarinet Ensemble
Direttore Lagni Marco
Noincanto
Direttore Renzo Fantuzzo
P. Mascagni Intermezzo, da “Cavalleria rusticana”
F. Hausdorfer Andante dalla “Suite per 4 clarinetti”
W. A. Mozart Ave verum corpus
E. Morricone Gabriel’s oboe
M. Paladini Amici miei
A. Cadario Shalom
p. T. Zardini Alto e glorioso Dio
L. Pigatto Preghiera semplice
Riz Ortolani Fratello sole sorella luna
A. Costa Toccare il cielo con un dito