Wednesday, October 23
5 pm, Sala Teatro
Concert commemorating the deportation of the Jews from the island of San Servolo on October 11th, 1944
Michele Gazich vocals, violin, viola
Marco Lamberti guitar, bouzouki, backing vocals
songs in Italian and Judeo Venetian
commentary in English
A photogallery of the event is available from the box in this page.
On Wednesday, October 23rd 2019, 5 pm, the poet and composer Michele Gazich presents the cycle of songs "Feared as a cry, expected as a song", at Venice International University, San Servolo.
The music is dedicated to the deported Jews from the San Servolo Island, where the album was entirely composed during a month in which Michele Gazich was a guest of the Waterlines project - artistic and literary residences in Venice.
Gazich remembers: “I wrote these songs in October 2017, a month during which I lived on San Servolo Island, in front of Venice. The island had been a mental hospital from 1725 to 1978. Every day I passed my time working in the archive in the morning, and writing in my room at night. In October 1944 all of the Jews already segregated in the mental hospital were “collected” (you can read this horrible word in the clinical records) and deported towards German concentration camps. I looked at their faces. I read again and again their stories in the clinical records, trying to bring them back, to give them back again their voice. Their story is unknown: my mission is to make it well-known. We all need each other, we need also to meet again all those men and women, “collected”. This concert is dedicated to them.”
Gazich brings back to San Servolo, where it was born, his cycle of songs, after having taken them on tour throughout Italy, starting from the Jewish Museum of Venice, up to Palazzo Marino, headquarters of the municipality of Milan.
The concert is jointly organized by:
-Venice International University;
-Ca’Foscari’s Humanities and Social Change Center;
-Il Colore degli Angeli Cultural Association;
with the support of San Servolo Servizi Metropolitani.
VIU presents this concert as part of the 2|19 VIULECTURES cycle to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the deportation of Jews from the island of San Servolo, now home to VIU.
VIU organizes two VIULECTURES series each year in which guests address interesting, topical issues. These events are open to the public.
Attendance is compulsory for the students enrolled in the following courses of the VIU Globalization Program:
F1901 History of Venice - Prof. Luca Pes
F1903 Italian for Foreigners - intermediate level - Prof. Elena Nieddu
F1907 Intercultural Communication - Prof. Giulia Storato
