A week of books, exhibitions, concerts and talks scattered across Livorno, and now the finale. On Friday, November 13, at 8 p.m., the Teatro Goldoni hosts the closing night of the twenty-ninth edition of the Premio Ciampi, the award Livorno has dedicated since 1995 to Piero Ciampi and to those who, like him, have never bent their music to a formula.
Beyond the Horizon Lies Another Land
This year’s title comes from a little-known line by Ciampi, tucked inside the song Se… Ma… No…. The organizers chose it as a statement of intent: things around us are still hard, they say, but the world of musicians who refuse the ordinary is more alive than ever, and it’s worth setting sail together toward another land, as in the late-sixties Wooden Ships. Another land that may be closer than it seems.
At the center, as always, is Piero Ciampi, an artist allergic to any compromise, and for that reason more necessary than ever in a music scene that keeps sounding the same. Over the years the Premio has brought Franco Battiato to Livorno, along with Fabrizio and Cristiano De André, Patty Pravo, Francesco Guccini, Nada, Vinicio Capossela, Carmen Consoli, Iosonouncane, Jack Bruce and Steve Wynn, to name just a few. The partnership with Arci nazionale, Italy’s nationwide network of cultural clubs, begun last year, continues, as does the one with the Fosdinovo festival Fino al cuore della rivolta.
The Lifetime Achievement Awards: Litfiba, Giovanni Lindo Ferretti and Giorgio Conte
Three long, full careers, bound by one thing: none of them has ever been afraid of displeasing someone. The first Lifetime Achievement Award goes to Litfiba, the founding fathers of Italian rock, who have always taken reality head-on, even its most uncomfortable sides.
The second goes to Giovanni Lindo Ferretti, one of the great visionaries of Italian music: as a solo artist and with CCCP – Fedeli alla linea, C.S.I. and PGR, he has written pages with no equal, and not only in Italy.
The third goes to Giorgio Conte, songwriter for some of the biggest names in Italian music and a storyteller with a velvet voice, able to tell stories that step out of their own time and place and speak to everyone.
The Premi Ciampi for Gaia Banfi and Krano
The Premio has always kept an eye on the outsiders, the ones who, like Ciampi, follow their own road without minding convention. This year the two Premi Ciampi go to them. The first to Gaia Banfi, for music of harsh, heartrending beauty that, in the end, consoles.
The second to Krano, who has always chosen the rough road and got there anyway, straight to the heart: this year he won the David di Donatello, Italy’s top film award, for the score of the film Le città di pianura.
Magma, Giovanni Conelli and the Other Winners
The winners of the Premio’s two long-standing prizes also take the stage. The National Competition goes to Florinda Venturella, better known as Magma.
The award for best cover of a Ciampi song goes to Giovanni Conelli. The Arci prize, now in its second year, goes to Elena Romano, and Januaria, winner of the competition La Calabria omaggia Piero Ciampi, joins them too.
Then come the other prizes that bear Ciampi’s name. The Premio Valigie Rosse for poetry goes to Valerio Vallini and, for a foreign poet, to American Mathias Svalina. The Premio Ciampi a Fumetti, the comics award curated by Guido Siliotto, honors Andrea Bruno. L’Altrarte, devoted to the visual arts and coordinated by Riccardo Bargellini, goes to Lamberto Pignotti, a founder of the Gruppo 63 and Gruppo 70 avant-garde movements, and to Hogre, the anonymous artist known worldwide for subvertising. And there’s a first: the Premio Ciampi Cinema, curated by Marco Bruciati, awarded to Virgilio Villoresi. Paolo Pasi hosts the evening, with visuals by Riccardo Gioli.
The National Conference in Sala Mascagni
The afternoon, from 4 p.m., belongs to the National Conference in the Goldoni’s Sala Mascagni, coordinated by Antonio Vivaldi. Enrico De Angelis presents Tutto Ciampi – Canzoni, poesie e racconti di Piero Ciampi (squi[libri]), the volume that expands and updates the long out-of-print Tutta l’opera from 1992. Enrico Lazzeri, aka DJ Henry, presents Ballare nella catastrofe, a mix of tales from the DJ booth and poems.
There are two records, too: L’amore è tutto qui by the Collettivo Ciampi, with Michela Lombardi, Marco Rovelli, Marco Panattoni, Le Onde Martenot and a spoken-word track by Mimmo Calopresti, and Piero è passato di qui vol. 2 by Alessia Arena and Chiara Riondino, devoted to Ciampi’s songs from the seventies. Marco Trulli of Arci talks about FestA!, the project that has brought dozens of Italian festivals together around sustainability; Carmine Giordano and Jennà Romano present the short film Come il vento del porto (sulle tracce di Piero Ciampi), a tour of Livorno among the city’s “ciampiani doc,” its die-hard Ciampi devotees; Lorenzo Lepore talks about the traveling recital In(Ciampi) – gli outsider dello stivale.
Tickets and Information
Tickets for the closing night are on presale at the Teatro Goldoni box office and at Ticketone outlets, and online at goldoniteatro.it and ticketone.it. The Goldoni box office can be reached at +39 0586 204290 and is open Tuesday and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., and Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. For everything else, contact the Associazione Premio Ciampi: +39 0586 426888, info@premiociampi.it, premiociampi.it.
