The Matthew Online

A lesson on Dylan's last folk classic packs the house

By Beatriz Fiore

ROME, April 7 - “Strike another match/ go start anew/ it’s all over now, Baby Blue”, sang a black-and-white Bob Dylan from a suspended screen in the Auditorium’s lecture hall on Sunday afternoon.

Gino Castaldo and Ernesto Assante, music critics for Italian newspaper ‘La Repubblica’ presented another unforgettable record on Sunday for their cycle of lectures on 20^th Century music, "Viaggio al Centro della Musica.Lezioni di Rock." The critics demonstrated the importance of Dylan’s 1965 release "Bringing it All Back Home" to a captivated audience, most of whom weren’t even born when the record was first released.

 

The Fourth Tenor

By Graciela Chahin

ROME, Feb. 27 -- Francisco Casanova wasn't always called 'The Fourth Tenor'.

As a boy, in the Dominican Republic, he dreamed about becoming a professional singer. However, the social and economic circumstances in the Dominican Republic at the time were not ideal for him to pursue his dream. So, in his early twenties he left.

Leaving his family was very hard, but from a very early age he knew that he wanted to sing and to achieve this he had to make sacrifices. The first person that believed in him was a childhood friend, Francisco Canó.  Canó told him: “Do not expect anyone to help you because no one is interested. Leave, go to the States.”

 

The "Godfather" wedding march? Listen up

By Alison Graham

ROME, Feb. 12 -- Monday night's concert program for The Filarmonic Orchestra di Roma promised “young music for the young in all of us,” and it delivered.

The concert, entitled “Hollywood Blockbusters”, included scores from movie hits such as “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”, "Pirates of the Carribean” “The Gladiator”, “James Bond”, “The Godfather”, “Titanic” and “Apollo 13”.

“The music always sends a message to the people, young or [not so] young,”  principal conductor Ezio Monti told the Matthew Online in an interview after the performance. “The music can change the people. The music can change the country. The music can change the world.”

Jazz orchestra lights up JCU's Aula Magna

By Coralie Mevs

ROME, Nov. 28 - For the past month, the Orchestra Nazionale Italiana del Jazz has been performing across Rome, holding concerts at schools, theaters, music clubs and institutional authorities. Last
night, the orchestra made a quick stop to John Cabot University's Aula Magna auditorium.

The orchestra was founded in 2003 by Enrico Castiglione, one of the most famous producers of theatrical musicals of his generation, and it is promoted by the Italian Ministry of Culture.

Under the direction of composer, saxophonist and conductor, Angelo Schiavi, the band on Tuesday night performed a concert entitled ‘American Big Bands’, aiming to revive original compositions of some jazz masters such as Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Stan Kenton, Bill Holman, Neal Helti, Claus Ogerman, Quincy Jones, Thad Jones, Oliver Nelson, Gerry Mulligan, and Gil Evans.

 

Rome's yearly jazz fest zips into town

By Sonia Malpeso

ROME, Nov. 6 - The 31^st edition of Rome's Jazz Festival opened on Sunday at the un-jazzlike hour of 11a.m. at The Auditorium with a grand performance by the Parco Della Musica Jazz Orchestra.

The PMJO, conducted by renowned saxophonist Maurizio Giammarco, performed 10 songs from a variety of famous jazz artists, including Woody Herman’s “Early Autumn” and Ben Webster’s “Cotton Tail.” Each song included individual solos, which drew enthusiastic responses from the packed audience of international jazz music lovers.   

Among the highlights of the concert was Giammarco’s saxophone solo in own original piece “Miss Who.”

 

DJ Jazzy Jeff rocks Rome's Piper Club

By Vanessa Dones

ROME, April 25 - The walls of the historic Piper Club, located in the heart of Rome, came alive with the beats of hip-hop pioneer, DJ Jazzy Jeff last Wednesday night. Jazzy, along with the rest of his entourage of friends and fellow DJs kept the crowd swaying well into the early morning.

The DJ Jazzy Jeff showcase has been a long awaited event for Rome’s party crowd, organized by a promoter well known to JCU students, Alfredo Martinez. DJ Jazzy Jeff, also known as Jeffery Townes, is most famous for being apart of the 1980s duo DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. Together, he and friend Will Smith took home a Grammy for their hit, "Parents Just Don’t Understand". Later, Townes acted along side Smith in his sitcom, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

 

From Ghana to Trastevere, JCU student has music in his blood

By Jeanette Pollara

Rome, April 11 - He just wants to “jam” and paint for a while, produce some good music and be with good friends while he discovers what’s next. This is Ed Elg, a 21-year-old aspiring singer-songwriter and international affairs major at John Cabot University.

Elg’s passion for music sparked when he picked up his dad’s guitar for the first time at age 10, back home in California. Elg began playing in a number of bands in high school, but he never felt as if he had the knack for singing.

(Pictured: Ed Elg, playing with singer-friend Patrice, at La Radio)

From Big Mama to Alexanderplatz, Rome's jazz scene excites the senses

By Blair Mlnarik

ROME, April 11 - Think the smooth sounds of American-born jazz couldn’t get any less Italian?  Think again.  Italy has been embracing and creating jazz for decades, and now the jazz club craze is shaking the nation like the revolutionary music did in the U.S.

The Umbria Jazz Festival (Europe’s largest), the journal Musica Jazz, and Rome’s own Casa del Jazz (inaugurated April 2005) testify to the genre’s popularity and adoption into Italian culture.

Bottles, mike stands fly, as do Babyshambles

Even for the most loyal Babyshambles fan, it would be hard to say anything positive about the band’s Roman performance at the Piper Club last month. Unless, that is, you are happy to pay 23 euros to see the lead singer, in a Vodka-fueled state, smash up the stage before abruptly exiting. The Matthew's correspondent Silvia Cavasola, who survived the melee, reports.