November 17th, 2015 - A musical journey that begins with the dawn of the Italian language to discover how music and words are intertwined, creating beautiful operas. "When language becomes music" is a conference that Luciana Galliano, musicologist and scholar of musical aesthetics, will hold tomorrow, Wednesday, November 18 at 6:30pm at the Umberto Agnelli Auditorium of the Italian Cultural Institute in Tokyo. After the year 1000, the Italian language started establishing itself progressively over, Latin thanks to a rich poetic production, which bloomed for nearly three centuries from the madrigal and intertwined with the different musical souls of the Italian Renaissance. The gradual rise of voice and melody is known as "recitar cantando," a style considered today the forefather of modern opera. The supremacy of Italian musical culture in Europe and the use of Italian as the language of music par excellence lasted until the 18th century. As the cultural epicenter shifted to central Europe, musical production in Italy focused substantially on opera, only to recover creativity and prestige in the twentieth century. This journey across music and language will see Galliano guide the audience with live music extracts, performed by the soprano Yumi Nara and the Quartet Henmi. (PO / SIP)

LUCIANA GALLIANO

Musicologist and scholar of musical aesthetics, Luciana Galliano combines expertise in contemporary music with a deep understanding of Japanese music. After earning her doctorate at the University of Arts in Tokyo, she collaborated with composer Luciano Berio on his research for the "Charles Eliot Norton Lectures" at Harvard University (1993-1994). Galliano taught for decades at Ca 'Foscari University in Venice. Her books in English include "Yōgaku: A History of Japanese Music in the 20th Century", "Power, Beauty and Meaning: Eight Studies on Chinese Music" and "The Music of Joji Yuasa", currently being translated in Japanese. In addition, Galliano is the author of academic texts in Italian and a series of essays on musicological published in journals worldwide.