DRINK – On the evening of June 2, I was about to make a heavy decision: to stay at home or to go and listen to the concert of the Bevagna band. Why dilemma? Because my physical condition right now is not entirely reassuring. Would the humidity of the evening hurt me? I have decided. I went. It is my country, my Bevagna that when I was a child I described as the country of dreams in the themes I wrote at school, in which I discharged all the emotional charge, the nostalgia, the regret for a beloved yet unknown homeland.
The concert would have been held in the Cloister of S. Domenico, a masterpiece of art whose arches bear faint traces of frescoes. It is now a restoration masterpiece.
One day, many years ago, I entered it in the company of a cousin. My son Paolo and a contemporary of his was with me. I liked entering that cloister. The children escaped us, went inside, suddenly appeared facing one of the arches. Years had passed since the war, the Cloister showed signs of a pitiful abandonment.
“What are you doing up there, get off immediately”, I shouted, “There is a danger of it collapsing!”. As soon as the two children got off, a roar, a column of dust came out of the last two arches. The roof had collapsed. “It’s a miracle”, my cousin shouted “Blessed James has done a miracle”. I flew over.
I went back into that cloister, now wonderful with a hundred lights, in the whiteness of the still fresh plaster.
That evening, already a place of meditation, of recollection, it hosted the Bevagna Music Band, directed by Filippo Salemmi, a Maestro who boasts an impeccable direction combined with intense spirituality.
The arches were immediately pervaded by a thousand involving sounds. The same choice of pieces allowed a particular emotional participation thanks to the intelligent alternation of fragrant sounds of vitality and power, resounding echoes of victory, melancholy cadences, redundant trumpets triumphs. A beautiful, exciting yet restful concert, like the soundtrack of Nuovo Cinema Paradiso or the melodic “Pastime with Good Company”, or the sonorous warrior Overture of Verdi’s Joan of Arc. The flow of the clear water of “The Shape of Water”, an invitation to coolness. To finish with the unsurpassed Il Canto degli Italiani which saw everyone standing to remember that a people realizes their superb dignity in music.
I learned with pleasure that the concert is a musical reality included in the project “Cohabiting the earth” that the Banda di Bevagna is bringing to the places of the lands of oil and Sagrantino, to promote the restart of music, which, confirms the president of the Mauro Palini Band, “it is, in the sad moments we are experiencing, the only resource to make us feel less alone, because the musical orchestra is a real community, where we are called to offer our contribution to create and restore create a splendid harmony “.
I like to re-propose the splendid poster that tells the project, which saw the Banda di Bevagna perform in Massa Martana, Gualdo Cattaneo, Trevi and Campello sul Clitunno and which will continue between July and August in Giano dell’Umbria, Castel Ritaldi and Montefalco, for end in the Cloister of S. Domenico in Bevagna.
Carla Ponti