Multidisciplinary series explores fight against Mafia

Multidisciplinary series explores fight against Mafia
Collaboration brings the American premiere of Italian masterpiece

FROM RICE NEWS STAFF REPORTS 

Rice’s Shepherd School of Music and School of Humanities will team up next week to present a concert, film and seminar series that explores the fight against the Mafia in Italy. The series, “The Murder of Judge Borsellino — The Fight Against the Mafia in Italy and a Mother’s Grief,” kicks off with a free screening of “Paolo Borsellino” at 6 p.m. in the Sadie R. Smith Auditorium in Herzstein Hall.

The series culminates with the American premiere performance of “Stabat Mater,” a sacred and secular cantata by Matteo D’Amico, at 8 p.m. Oct. 17 in Alice Pratt Brown Hall’s Duncan Recital Hall. There will also be a meet-and-greet with D’Amico during a reception after the concert. In addition, he will hold a seminar for Rice poets and composers Oct. 16 at the Shepherd School.

Scored for narrator, soprano, mezzo, strings and percussion, the work uses text from Sicilian author Vincenzo Consolo’s “Spasimo di Palermo” and was written in response to the notorious 1992 assassination of the anti-Mafia judge Paolo Borsellino.

Rice’s Cristian Macelaru will conduct “Stabat Mater” while Alfonso Veneroso performs as guest narrator and graduate student Amanda Grooms and Susanne Mentzer, professor of voice, sing. Shepherd School instrumentalists will accompany them.

The event is presented by Rice University (Shepherd School of Music, School of Humanities, Poetry & Poetics Workshop, Department of Classical Studies and Center for the Study of Languages), the Consulate General of Italy in Houston and Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Los Angeles.

For further information, contact Edward Anderson at edward.m.anderson@rice.edu or 713-348-4373.