With guest speaker Prof Aldo Schiavone ( President of the Italian Institute of Human Science)

19.00 pm, Friday, 13 April 2011 at the IIC 

This exhibition, edited by Valentino Baldacci and Cosimo Cecchi, professors at the University of Florence, is being carried out on the occasion of the celebrations for the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy. It seeks to celebrate and promote the role of Tuscany, and Florence in particular, during the Risorgimento period until 1848 and beyond. The exhibition testifies that Tuscany not only played a unifying role through the Tuscan dialect, the national language, but also through the central role of Florence as a cultural center during the age of the Restoration when it was a benchmark in the construction of a liberal feeling which gradually established its hegemony in the following unitary process.

The most significant historical events of this period are retraced by 20 panels. The exhibition consists of two sections: one which illustrates the grand-ducal period and the other which traces the social economic policies until the unification of Italy and the period when Florence was the capital. The exhibition is touring abroad  in cooperation with the cultural Institutes and Consulates as well as with the Coordinamenti Continentali e le Associazioni dei Toscani all'estero.  

19.00 pm, Thursday, 14 April 2011 at  the IIC 

MARIANO CORENO, one of Australia' best-known Italian-Australian poets, lives in Melbourne.

Quasimodo is one of the great Italian poets of the twentieth century. He brings us the harmonies of the South which, in Italian poetry of the past, has meant the sickly as well as the exquisite. His own lyric form gives something new to Italian poetry. Occasionally he recalls his childhood in Sicily, looking back at it from misty Milan, like in his beautiful poem " LETTERA ALLA MADRE ". He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1959. He witnessed Italy's suffering during the Second World War. One of his best poems is " ED E' SUBITO SERA ", Mariano Coreno had a letter written to him by Quasimodo which was published in TEMPO magazine in 1966.

Happy Birthday, Rome! The Myth of Ancient Rome in Contemporary Society

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19.00 pm, Thursday, 21 April 2011 at the IIC 

Marxiano Melotti studies the continuity and discontinuity between the ancient and the modern world, with special reference to the various forms of re-discovery and valorisation of the past in contemporary society and, particularly, in the media. The relationships between tourism, world heritage and cultural identity are among his main interests. He teaches Contemporary History at the Niccolò Cusano University of Human Sciences (Rome) and Archaeological Tourism at the Bicocca University (Milan). He is the Secretary General of the Foundation for the Italian Institute of Human Sciences. He is a member of the board of the NISA, Network of Italian Scholars Abroad (New York) and of the ECHIC, European Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (Dublin).  Melotti has published numerous articles and books.

BANDITALIANA  

in concert

17.30 pm and 19.30 pm, Wednesday, 27 April 2011 at Melbourne Recital Centre  

Benvenuto! Multicultural Arts Victoria, Melbourne Recital Centre and ABC Radio National's Music Deli present an evening of international and Australian acts playing music from Italy. Banditaliana, a four-piece group from Tuscany play new arrangements of old Tuscan songs, dance tunes, and original music inspired by their Tuscan heritage. They will be joined in the Elisabeth Murdoch Hall by La Bande di Sandro, an Australian band who play new arrangements of old village songs and music from Friul, Italy. The Salon will feature the Italian Women's Choir of Melbourne, La Voce della Luna singing songs from the Italian popular folk tradition, and Roberto and Luciana de Sanctis playing Italian dance tunes for diatonic accordion and percussion. There will also be a free performance by The Combined Accordion Orchestra between performances in the Audi foyer.

Tickets:  

For the concert at 17.30 at Salon: $25 ($20 concession)

For the concert at 17.30 at Elisabeth Murdoch Hall:

$45 ($40 concession), Special family ticket offer $90 (maximum two adults and two children) 

Lorenzo Colitto and Giulia Panzeri at the Blackwood River Chamber Festival   

The two Italian musicians from the Archipelago ensemble

From Wednesday 29 April to 1 May 2011 at 32 Hampton St, Bridgetown WA 6255, Australia   

The Blackwood River Chamber Festival, founded in 1997, is a small, high-quality, annual festival of chamber music held in Bridgetown, Western Australia. The performers comprise national and international artists, and several young Perth-based musicians, playing as soloists and in ensemble. The music covers the period from the seventeenth century to the present day, and there are as a rule a singer, a string quartet or piano trio, and several instumental soloists. 

This edition will include special quests from Italy: Lorenzo Colitto (Violin) and Giulia Panzeri (Viola).

Tickets:  A-$350, B-$275 - C- $175