Kenya:World Famous Maestro Riccardo Muti to Perform in Nairobi
By Eric Sande
World-famous Italian Maestro Riccardo Muti, Conductor and Music Director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, will be in Kenya this weekend on July 9, 2011 with more than 200 members of the Orchestra Cherubini to conduct a concert at Nairobi's Uhuru Park grounds. Kenyan musicians and singers will also be part of the concert that promises to be the biggest-ever classical music extravaganza in East Africa.
The event is part of the Ravenna Festival's Roads of Friendship initiative, born in Sarajevo in 1997. Every year since then, the Ravenna Festival have organized and performed concerts in 14 nations, with Maestro Muti conducting various orchestras, to celebrate peace and to invoke solidarity through music.
Kenya was chosen for the 2011 location of the Roads of Friendship. Maestro Muti and the Ravenna Festival are dedicating this year's concert to funding educational scholarships for young people in Nairobi’s informal settlements. These scholarships, which will be given to Italian missions, will be coordinated through a special committee based in Italy in the city of Piacenza. The concert will also be a tribute to two Italian missionaries, Annalena Tonelli and Sister Leonella Sgorbati, who worked in Kenya for many years, losing their lives in Somalia as martyrs.
The invite to perform in Nairobi was received by maestro Muti at the end of a concert held in December 2009 at the Teatro Municipale in Piacenza (Italy) to raise funds for Francesca Lipeti, a Piacenza-born medical doctor who has been working in Kenya since 1994.
On that occasion, Riccardo Muti was confronted with a dream: dedicating a concert to dwellers of the Nairobi slums. The purpose: awakening souls through music’s universal and boundless message and actively supporting the development and social promotion of Kibera, one of sub-Saharan Africa’s largest slum settlements, through fundraising for scholarships.
Riccardo Muti’s immediate support of the idea was promptly backed by Ravenna Festival and Piacenza Municipality, with the collaboration of Amani Onlus, a Milan-based non-government organization that works with African partners on the ground to provide boarding facilities, education, counseling, and other services for children in Kenya, Zambia, and Sudan. The group coordinates educational scholarships to low-income children and young people in these countries.
The project was also endorsed by RAI, the Italian state owned public service broadcaster, who will broadcast the event in Italy and other countries. Also endorsing the project were the Nairobi City Council, as well as the Italian embassy in Kenya. The Kenyan Government, through its Vice- President Kalonzo Musyoka, has also enthusiastically supported the initiative.
The music extravaganza is a unique event that will enhance the reputation of Nairobi as the emerging cultural capital of East Africa.