The Department of Music Studies within the School of Performing Arts proudly presents Paolo Prato (LUISS Creative Business Center, Rome) in two public lectures at the University of Malta, Msida Campus.
Lecture 1
Tuesday 19 April 2016 from 13:30 till 15:00 in Room 127, Old Humanities Building (OH127), Department of Music Studies
Reception and impact of Italian popular music abroad: stereotypes and national identity
Although Italian music is mainly identified with opera, its popular music repertoire has found a place in the international arena for more than 150 years. It crossed the borders via the ambulant musicians who wandered all along Europe and the Americas in the late XIXth century, then it became a steady feature of the recording industry in its many versions. The lecture focuses on the globalization of songs, particularly on the import/export between the Anglophone market and a peripheral country: Italian popular music is viewed from the perspective of cover records, which provides quite a different story of the domestic product. Contrarily to the most obvious approach, which considers Italy as one of the countries which have been imitating foreign styles and translating English and American hits for decades, I will offer another, less known view, when Italian songs are covered by English speaking artists and become part of a worldwide shared culture. Music examples will include Neapolitan songs, dance songs, instrumentals, tarantellas and pop songs from the Sixties, which was the golden age of cover records in Italy.
Reception and impact of Italian popular music abroad: stereotypes and national identity
Although Italian music is mainly identified with opera, its popular music repertoire has found a place in the international arena for more than 150 years. It crossed the borders via the ambulant musicians who wandered all along Europe and the Americas in the late XIXth century, then it became a steady feature of the recording industry in its many versions. The lecture focuses on the globalization of songs, particularly on the import/export between the Anglophone market and a peripheral country: Italian popular music is viewed from the perspective of cover records, which provides quite a different story of the domestic product. Contrarily to the most obvious approach, which considers Italy as one of the countries which have been imitating foreign styles and translating English and American hits for decades, I will offer another, less known view, when Italian songs are covered by English speaking artists and become part of a worldwide shared culture. Music examples will include Neapolitan songs, dance songs, instrumentals, tarantellas and pop songs from the Sixties, which was the golden age of cover records in Italy.
Lecture 2
Tuesday 19 April 2016 from 17:00 till 19:00 in Room 124 Old Humanities Building (OH124), Department of Music Studies
From Charleston to Lindy Hop: black and white dances in the swing era
The extraordinary raise of popular music in the years between the wars, involved a unprecedented discovery of the body and its energetic potential both in the human relationship sphere and in the entertainment industry. Doing away with traditional dance practices such as the waltz, the polka and the quadrille – associated with the Old World - the jazz dances which had appeared in the New World in the early XXth century brought along a wind of change that impacted on cinema, theatre and music. For the first time, Afro-American culture played a central role in shaping new nation's habits, something which was soon extended to the whole Western world. The lecture will trace a brief history of popular dance from the Jazz Age to the Swing Era, mainly focusing on musical theater and film musicals. Not a technical lecture on dance practices but an attempt at locating these dances at the center of cultural studies. We will watch footage from Fred Astaire to the Nicholas Brothers, from the Whitey Lindy hoppers to Judy Garland: a tale of effervescence which can help understand contemporary developments on the dancefloor.
The extraordinary raise of popular music in the years between the wars, involved a unprecedented discovery of the body and its energetic potential both in the human relationship sphere and in the entertainment industry. Doing away with traditional dance practices such as the waltz, the polka and the quadrille – associated with the Old World - the jazz dances which had appeared in the New World in the early XXth century brought along a wind of change that impacted on cinema, theatre and music. For the first time, Afro-American culture played a central role in shaping new nation's habits, something which was soon extended to the whole Western world. The lecture will trace a brief history of popular dance from the Jazz Age to the Swing Era, mainly focusing on musical theater and film musicals. Not a technical lecture on dance practices but an attempt at locating these dances at the center of cultural studies. We will watch footage from Fred Astaire to the Nicholas Brothers, from the Whitey Lindy hoppers to Judy Garland: a tale of effervescence which can help understand contemporary developments on the dancefloor.
Paolo Prato teaches at the LUISS Creative Business Center in Rome and is author and speaker for Radio InBlu. He is international advisor for the Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World and guest editor of a forthcoming volume on European genres. He is also on the editorial board of the journals Popular Music History and Musica/Realtà. His current interests concern issues of national identity, genre crossing, and the history of music technology. Among his books are Suoni in scatola: Sociologia della musica registrata (1999), Il treno dei desideri: Musica e ferrovia da Berlioz al rock (2003), White Christmas: L’America e la reinvenzione del Natale (2006), La musica italiana: Una storia sociale dall’Unità a oggi (2010), I canti di Natale: Da “Jingle Bells” a Lady Gaga (2013), and Le macchine della musica: L’orchestra in casa (2013).