DONATORI DI MUSICA
- Mar 19, 2023
- 1 min read
Donors of Music is a network of musicians, doctors and volunteers, established in 2009 to create and coordinate concert seasons in hospitals. The emotional and human experience of listening to live music is a right of everyone, and especially of those facing critical situations. It was born in 2007 from an idea of Gian Andrea Lodovici and Maurizio Cantore.
"So that Great Music becomes more and more a tool of important aid to medical care in every oncology ward."
Gian Andrea Lodovici
The Music Donors Association was awarded the 2012 Abbiati Award (Social Projects Category), and the 2013 Alexander Langer Award, presented at Laura Boldrini at the Chamber of Deputies on October 9, 2013.
Roberto Prosseda, since the founding of the Music Donors Association, has been the artistic coordinator.
Why Donatori di Musica?
Music Donors concerts are not just cultural events. The patients many times unrecognizable by volunteers and family members, the intense and experienced musicality of the artists, the applause gushed from the hearts and the most paralyzing shadows of cancer patients in thanks to the "outside world" who came among them to bring Music, to bring Life, cannot fail to hit the big target of emotionality, participation, the importance of being there.
This is the dream of Gian Andrea Lodovici , a great music critic and record producer: a dream that came to life just as Gianandrea began his last journey, the one with the disease in Carrara Oncology. And from that Oncology, in August 2007, this creeping revolution began, embarrassing in its simplicity and continuity: eight regular concert seasons, every Wednesday at 7 p.m., on the fourth floor. More than 70 concerts with outstanding musicians. Music seen not just as an event, but present with continuity: the event becoming a "system."
The goal of the Music Donors is to make this dream come true in many other Oncologies, in many other hospitals and health facilities, thanks to the extraordinary and enthusiastic generosity of hundreds of musicians who have already given their availability.
The characteristics of the Music Donors concerts are:
- Continuity. The concerts are always part of regular and continuous seasons.
- Quality. Concerts are given by musicians with established concert activity to ensure similar quality to that of "regular" major concert seasons.
- Empathy. The concertmasters do not put on their tails, and they normally converse with their audience, presenting the pieces and choosing a program that is easy to listen to. A convivial time after the concert is also planned so that patients can talk and get to know the musicians personally, with a view to breaking down barriers and distinctions between "sick and "healthy," between "doctor" and "patient."
- No profit motive. The musicians perform for free (only hospitality for one night and reimbursement of any travel expenses is provided). Concerts are all free admission and limited to patients, their families and hospital staff, so as not to interfere with traditional concert seasons.
Anyone can become a Music Donor by entering their contact information in the membership form and specifying their qualification:
- Musicians with established concert activity.
- Physicians able to host a "Donors of Music" season in the health care facility where they work.
- Volunteers who help with the logistical organization of the concerts: this category also includes hoteliers, drivers, caterers, printers, suppliers and piano tuners.
- Supporters who want to make a donation (in money or material goods) to support "Donors of Music."
Being there is useful
Being there is good
From the musician's point of view
I often wonder if I have been a little too selfish in investing 30 years of my life in the study of music and piano. It is, of course, very reductive to speak only of "study," since music is so much more: it is a way of seeing, understanding, and loving life, the world, and the reality around us, a way of communicating with others and looking within ourselves. However, I can't help but think that the large amount of time I have devoted to music could have been better spent putting it directly at the service of others with professions that are more concretely useful to others: for example, that of a doctor. A doctor can save thousands of lives. What about a musician? Today I can say, thanks to the experience of the Music Donors and the concerts I have had the privilege of giving at the Oncology wards of the hospitals of Carrara and Bolzano, that even a musician can put his professional experience and artistic sensibility to good use and effectively "donate" it to those who need it most. Playing for patients in Oncologies is a strong, intense experience that is as good for the patients as it is for us musicians. In those special concerts I found the answer to my question about the usefulness of music. Giving emotions, conveying the art of great composers to such a special audience thirsty for beauty -- despite the difficulties of health conditions -- is one of the most profound gratifications a musician can imagine. And for that I am especially grateful to that "special" audience. I believe that the intensity of the interpretations "donated" at these particular concerts is difficult to repeat elsewhere. I wish all my colleagues a similar, intense human and artistic experience.
Roberto Prosseda