FESTIVAL ITALIANA KULTURBRÜCKE AM RHEIN 2024

In the organizer's words:

ITALIANA CULTURAL BRIDGE ON THE RHINE 2024

Concerts, singer-songwriters, jazz, world music, Super 8 film,

Music and history - a cultural festival in Cologne,

beyond pasta and amore!

The biennial ITALIANA KULTURBRÜCKE AM RHEIN festival under the direction of Italian musician Alessandro Palmitessa, who has lived in Cologne since 1997, is now in its tenth year, and we want to celebrate! Since 2008, the festival has been building a cultural bridge between Italy and other cultures by trying to overcome all forms of clichés. The Italian artists living in Germany create a dialog between German, Italian and artists from other countries of origin. The Italian community is growing continuously. There are 800,000 people of Italian origin living in Germany, and more than 17,500 in Cologne. Although Italian immigration to Germany began decades ago, there are still clichés about Italian culture, and there are few cultural events that consciously aim to help break down these clichés about Italy. Our aim is to present artists from Italy who are hardly or not yet known in the cultural scene here in Germany, although they have great artistic potential and a lot of performance experience in Italy. The festival also aims to be a springboard for artists.

ITALIANA KULTURBRÜCKE AM RHEIN also offers a stage for innovative and integrative projects: in "Journey to the Moon", a Super 8 film from the 1970s about a hypothetical journey to the moon, Alessandro Palmitessa (saxophone, live electronics), Thomas Machoczek (live electronics) and Cosimo Erario (electric guitar, loops) will perform a live soundtrack to the Super 8 material curated by Geremia Carrara (concept and film editing). The "MenschenSinfonieOrchester", which has existed since 2001 and integrates people from the margins of society, will present an extraordinary and cross-border concert as part of the festival under the direction of Alessandro Palmitessa with many outstanding guests such as Klaus der Geiger with his KunstSalon Orchestra, Richard Bargel and Hans Mörtter. The young trio "Suonno d'Ajere" from Naples stands for the glamorous comeback of the Canzone Classica Napoletana with its refined Neapolitan songs. Founded in 2016, the trio's name roughly translates as "dream of yesterday" and refers to the song of the same name on Pino Daniele's debut album "Terra Mia" (1977). The musicians Irene Lupe Scarpato (vocals), Marcello Smigliante Gentile (mandolin, mandola, mandoloncello) and Gian Marco Libeccio (classical guitar) have dedicated themselves entirely to the exploration and contemporary reworking of the traditional Neapolitan song. Another guest at the festival will be singer-songwriter Giacomo Lariccia, who has already made it to the final round of the "Targa Tenco" festival dedicated to Luigi Tenco three times (2012, 2014, 2020) and is the winner of various other songwriting awards. In "There are no fairy tales for children", the voice of actor Luca Paglia and the musical atmosphere of Marco Pascarelli's viola playing take you on a journey through the true stories behind the fairy tales. The trio Palmitessa, Mbaye, Berhausen-Land will also take you on a musical journey as they trace the development of jazz and its most important influences through African-American and African music. Another evening of music will be dedicated to the great Italian singer-songwriter Fabrizio De André, who died 25 years ago.

This year's festival will take place in November 2024, mainly in Cologne's Südstadt district at cultural venues such as the Lutherkirche and the Italian cultural center Mondo Aperto. The detailed program can be found in the appendix. Since 2008, the festival has been organized in cooperation with WDR as media sponsor. The festival is supported by the Cultural Office of the City of Cologne, Cologne city center district. We would also like to thank our sponsors from Cologne's Südstadt district for their support: Café Sur, Zwölfgrad and the Mondo Aperto-Offenen Welt association as well as the Lutherkirche.

The festival director and his team thank you for your attention and support of the festival.

The festival program here: www.festival-all-italiana.de

ITALIANA CULTURAL BRIDGE ON THE RHINE 2024
Festival program 2024 from 02.11 to 30.11.2024
Free admission!

Price information:

Free admission to all festival events. Given the limited number of places, we recommend that you reserve a place as early as possible. To reserve a place, please write to this e-mail address: festivalitaliana@googlemail.com