Supporting the promotion of music and the best Italian talents in our country and abroad, giving space in particular to young performers of classical music and jazz, is the main objective that the CIDIM Comitato Nazionale Italiano Musica ETS has been pursuing for about 50 years. We discussed this with Francescantonio Pollice, president of AIAM Associazione Italiana Attività Musicali (which brings together around 250 of the main music institutions in Italy) and since March also at the helm of CIDIM, of which he was vice-president for over ten years.
“Although they are certainly less talked about, classical music and also jazz music, which we are involved in, are thriving and extremely popular activities in Italy and abroad. Our action tends to guarantee adequate space and economic support to those who make music and to give young people the opportunity to train, to transform what is initially a propensity and a passion into a real job. Because those who make music must be able to have professional and economic satisfaction”.
But what does the CIDIM do, can you sum it up in a few words?
“To widely promote Italian music and musicians at home and abroad through its national and international network. The selection of talents made by the Artistic Committee has been joined in recent years by the important contribution of the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena and the Fondazione internazionale ‘Incontri col Maestro’ in Imola, two of Italy's leading institutions of higher education, which offer us their talents, which we have them perform in very prestigious contexts. The CIDIM is the only Italian association capable of promoting over 200 concerts in thirty countries on five continents and almost all of them with young people as the absolute protagonists. You may be wondering how we managed this. In the course of our history, we have managed to build a solid relationship with MAECI and with the network of Italian Embassies, Consulates, and Institutes of Culture that choose our institution because it guarantees them high quality and originality of musical proposals. To limit ourselves to last July, the CIDIM organised concerts in Peru, Ethiopia, Poland, Croatia and Brazil. For the past few years, thanks to a happy personal intuition of mine, we have also focused a lot on Africa and the Middle East. We have been to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and Egypt, where, for example, we organised, on behalf of the Italian government, the concert for the stopover of the Amerigo Vespucci sailing ship that landed in Alexandria, Egypt”.
Indeed! And who would have imagined that classical music and jazz would be so popular in Africa or the Middle East?
“We precisely. To give you a better understanding, in the summer of 2024 we were in Fés, Morocco, where for the famous festival musiche Sacré, inside the splendid monumental complex of Bab Al Makina, 4,000 paying spectators applauded Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, and in the Roman amphitheatre of El Jem in Tunisia, known to the general public as the location where the film Gladiator was filmed, there was a very long standing ovation for the Accademia di Santa Sofia, guest of the local International Music Festival.
Which artists would you like to bring to the public's attention?
“I cannot wrong anyone. So I will just highlight a few. For Jazz, I have in mind Accordi Disaccordi ensemble that CIDIM has been supporting for years. Where they go they always succeed and arouse great interest. And then the young cellists Ettore Pagano and Michele Marco Rossi, the violinists Gennaro Cardaropoli, Julian Kainrath and Giulia Rimonda, the pianists Alberto Ferro, Gabriele Strada and Nicolò Cafaro, the lutenist Simone Vallerotonda and his ensemble i Bassifondi, and many others who all deserve to establish themselves more and more at an international level”.
Do you also operate a lot in the capital?
“For years, together with the Governorate of the Vatican City State, the Museums and Cultural Heritage Directorate, we have been promoting the “Musica ai Musei” project, the event that takes place in the heart of the Vatican Museums with a well-established formula that allows spectators to first visit the Vatican Museums and then attend the scheduled concert. We also organise a series of important events as part of the Festival of Sacred Music promoted by the Lazio Region and, last but not least, the “Sacrae Militiae Sonus” concert series featuring the most prestigious military and ministerial music bands in the Basilica of San Vitale al Quirinale in Rome. These concerts are part of the Jubilee celebrations and are organised in collaboration with various institutions and under the patronage of the Governorate of the Vatican City State”.
Would you like to make a final appeal?
“We would like to thank the institutions that continue to support us, to believe in the liveliness of cultured Italian musical culture, because the associations that operate in our country represent an important engine for Italy, and making culture allows us to generate more. The latest figures available to me tell us that the associations belonging to AIAM (Associazione Italiana Attività Musicali) have welcomed more than 2 million spectators in the more than 12,000 concerts performed. For every euro the State gives to our member institutions, we give back 76.23 cents. To this must be added all the tax, social security and contribution charges resulting from the income from indirect employment and the induced income generated by our activities. These numbers lead to the conclusion that the return to the State is certainly higher than the amount we receive through the National Fund for Live Performing Arts. Believing in us is not a gamble, but a certain investment”.
