For me it was a wonderful experience, being in contact with guys who share with me the passion for music gave me so much, and I am still under the effect of the energy I received from them.
I hope I have managed to convey something of my experience, to intrigue and stimulate them, and I would have really liked to have more time to spend with them.
I really liked the idea of giving each of the boys the opportunity to ask for clarification, and it was very nice to have lunch with them: it allowed me to talk with some others, in an informal and definitely stimulating way.
I sincerely believe that this initiative is invaluable for the high level of information at 360 degrees that provides, I have indeed been lucky enough to make the return trip with Professor Quirino Principe, who is probably the most interesting person and with the most articulated that I have never met.
I can therefore imagine how many other precious interventions could have assisted the boys, and how much this experience could have enriched them.
I would therefore like to thank you and Father Fausto for your kindness and competence, hoping to be able to repeat this enlightening experience, inviting those who want to deepen their musical knowledge to participate: it is certainly a unique experience for completeness and quality.
Thank you so much
Mohammed Kenawi
Dear Fathers Eraldo and Fausto,
with pleasure I have grasped your invitation, a sign of openness and confrontation between realities, stories and cultures, apparently and erroneously considered distant and adverse.
It is with this spirit of (meeting) that I made my documentary that I have pleasantly with you.
During the course you have organized I was able to grasp important food for thought and deepen the knowledge that has enriched me a lot.
The presence of the speakers and the young participants gave me positive emotions: in the light of the phenomena of ignorance and intolerance that we see every day, I perceived a deep feeling of true knowledge and respect, important signs that illuminate the often dark scenarios that this country face to face.
Sending a greeting to the boys: I wish them to open their minds and hearts in the light of knowledge so as not to feel slaves and guided by the opinions of others.
I thank you and respect you for your commitment
Kind regards
Zipoli is primarily a community of people who live music as a means of spiritual elevation. Guests are invited to tell how the music has traced their path of life and the dialogue that flows with the participants is extremely rich in content that goes beyond the technical-stylistic deepening typical of any other musical workshop.
My meeting this year, focusing on the description of the experience called ‘Kapuziner Strasse’, a technique of collaborative music production, has confirmed to me how music is more interesting as a means than an end, how much it can become a means of overcoming of its limits through the communion of talents, as the sensitivity and the human and aesthetic wealth of each individual can raise the spirit, raising at the same time the music itself.
What I hope is that this community, understood as every group of people in which there is a widespread sensitivity to live music as a way of human growth, expands and gives stable and lasting fruit both in the artistic and spiritual field and I am sure in coming years Zipoli will be a shining example.
There are places capable of immediately bringing you back to an other, vertical dimension of existence. The Palatine Chapel of Palermo is one of these. The splendor of art is combined with the power of silence that this place induces.
Being able to present my music in this work of art was the first spark that led me to accept without reserve the invitation of the organizers. But as often happens, deep motivations emerge when certain events are experienced.
The meeting with the boys who participated in the spirituality course in music was very interesting for me. A limited and motivated audience that followed the sound and interior paths that I proposed with my collaborators, Erika Lo GIudioce and Peppe Di Mauro. We have had the opportunity to relate with competent and curious young people who have asked questions that are often profound, always sincere and passionate.
I do not like to think that I have taught anything, I hope I have transmitted a sincere testimony of what I live and experience through my existence.
What I would like the boys to have grasped is this: the essential importance of looking within oneself for one’s own sound, one’s inner resonance and for it to draw for greater and sincere creativity, for a better and worthy life.
Alessandro Zignani
The “Zipoli” Course is much more than a course: it is a spiritual experience capable of changing one’s vision of music. Empathy with the participants, both teachers and students, is stimulated by an exchange of ideas and a flow of concentrated creativity along which the personality of each is, at the same time, preserved in its originality and enhanced by the continuous emotional feedback. . The decision to privilege everyone’s “experience” made each meeting an intellectual autobiography, rather than a lesson. As far as I am concerned, I rarely felt welcomed and supported by such intense and participative attention, availability and motivation. The “Zipoli” Course will remain in my memory as a moment of growth, something capable of giving meaning to the future development of my creative activities. You always work for someone, but it often happens that you can feel the nature and strength of the energies that come into play: in Palermo, this happened; and of this I am grateful.
The reflections made to prepare me for this appointment. The place blessed by the highest and most inspired intentions, in the midst of a sacred Palermo that resists the siege of cold modernity, preserving the timeless beauty of the “Chapel of the Dames”.
The wonder of having realized that the la Vie Vie Coeur mentioned by Pascal is the religious mystery indicated by Ignatius of Loyola, incarnated by two unexpected friends like Father Fausto and Father Eraldo. The atmosphere, the receptive and sunny silence of the boys and girls of the seminary, waiting to meet me without expectations, will remain in me as a precious gift among the most unexpected.
For all of us the road is long that from the forest of inner unconsciousness, leads to develop the consciousness of the heart, the sense of vibrant life.
It was moving to share a piece of that road. Move in time on an ancient and contemporary journey with the words of the Gospel of John re-actualized, where the word “Verbo” has replaced that of “Truth of the vibrant heart”. The surprise is that everything I feared could be complex, but rather sounded natural, logical, assimilated without forcing. Thus Music, for all those who were in that room, was able to resume its natural place of universal code for the transmission of affections. A code that unites us from all its different forms and genres that divide us.
I felt and shared the amazement of the children invited to approach the observation of the inner emotional territory, to the action of Music. The invitation to follow a path of ethical reading and reclamation of one’s own self, right through Music. But I also rejoiced in having perceived that they are principles that “feel”. In my next book on the emotional experience of Music, a chapter is dedicated to the “Ecology of Feelings”, a term that I coined only out of need.
Here I believe that together, for a whole morning, we have practiced this special ecology together. Our single affective Planet needs to be intuited, seen, named, constantly filled with images, poetry, a current of emotional energy that responds to the name of “loving”.
Bringing permanent light into the emotional world is not like lighting a light bulb on command. We need daily dedication, silence, filtering beauty even where it does not seem to exist; filtering emotions from plants, perceiving the music where it does not manifest itself with sound.
After all we talked, very talked about this with the boys.
While I was talking I perceived the attention and a common mood that was cut with a knife.
The perception of being all within a current that went beyond all confession and culture, a current in which we were all inserted, speakers and listeners. I do not get another term to define that strong sense of belonging that I felt present in the group, if not: feeling hidden, but unitedly united to a descendant: to that from the lineage of Abel.
It will be an experience that I will carry in my heart, of which I warmly thank the boys, Father Fausto, Father Eraldo and the Jesuit order.
It was a pleasure to participate!
It is always stimulating for me to share my music, my passion and a bit of jazz history with young people, so little known especially by young people. That of the Zipoli Course I think it is a great opportunity for personal and musical growth that must be supported and disseminated.[/av_textblock]