Concert at Villa Trossi “GENOVA NEL CUORE”

When we talk about the Genoese school, the reference is to that artistic and cultural movement that developed in the ’60s of the last century in the capital of Liguria, with singer-songwriters at the center. Among its exponents, there are illustrious names like Gino Paoli, Luigi Tenco, Fabrizio De André, Umberto Bindi, Bruno Lauzi, and others, including the brothers Gian Franco and Gian Piero Reverberi. They don’t like the term “school” very much because they lived that movement more as a spontaneous impulse that led to sharing of listening, readings, visions. The mark left in the history of music is indelible and still resonates today. That’s why Estate a Villa Trossi, a festival promoted by the Trossi-Uberti Art Foundation and ideated by the Pietro Napoli Association, gladly hosts the show “Genova nel cuore“, created by Claudio Cacciari to pay homage to the love songs of Genoese singer-songwriters. The appointment is at Villa Trossi on Thursday, July 30, at 9:30 pm.

On stage with Claudio Cacciari (piano and voice), there will be Giorgio Taurasi on guitar, Diego Persi Paoli on bass, and Fabrizio Casella on drums. The theme will be romantic songs, fishing in this sense from the vast repertoire of the so-called Genoese school, but not only. The project was born in 2023 as Claudio Cacciari’s piano and voice, to later expand over time in order to give more richness to the arrangements and thus offer the audience a more complete listening experience.

The show is ideally conceived as a journey through the famous alleys of Genoa, where each street reveals a song and with it recalls flavors and sensations of a bygone era, yet still capable of thrilling. It will be like encountering the history of that movement and their major interpreters, so much so that the execution of the songs will be alternated with anecdotes, connections, details. When one thinks of singer-songwriters like Luigi Tenco and others from that period, the feeling that one most imagines close to them is that of melancholy, but in reality, besides the dark sides, in some ways unresolved, of their lives there was also something else, and the nature of their relationships proves it. The narrative parts that will punctuate the journey of “Genova nel cuore” will shine light on these aspects as well, but clearly the song will be the protagonist and in this sense, the setlist will propose songs like “La canzone dell’amore perduto” or “Bocca di rosa” by De André, or “Il cielo in una stanza” written by Gino Paoli and interpreted by Mina, and also a tribute to Gian Franco Reverberi.

The peculiarity of this show also lies in its ability to make connections with those who have somehow inherited the legacy of the Genoese school, including Ivano Fossati, so there will also be space for the execution of some of his songs, including the famous “E non finisce mica il cielo”, which will also pay tribute to the late Mia Martini. It will be impossible not to be moved, therefore, following the concert-storytelling “Genova nel cuore”, which for the first time arrives on the stage of Estate a Villa Trossi, with elegance and a desire to surprise.