events and news from in and around Barga (LU) Italy
When was the last time you heard a harp played in a Jazz Club ?
For the members of the very successful Barga Jazz Club the reply would be "last night"
Genny Tommasi and her group Etnoclassic were in Barga and played an incredible set of mixed sounds running through jazz out into ethnic, things bordering on deconstructed sounds and samples and then back into jazz once again.
More images here
Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett at his most bleak, was played last night in the Teatro dei Differenti in front of a packed house.
Gianluigi Pizzetti,and Stefano Gragnani, the two tramps, Guilio Federico Janni as the strutting Pozzo, Giulio Cancelli as the ever pedaling Lucky and Tortoid as the Ragazzo all working under the able direction of the Regia, Carlo Da Prato, showed us a glimpse into the world where we are always waiting, where the act of waiting is never over and yet it mysteriously starts up again each day.
The action, in the same way, describes a circle. Each day is the return to the beginning. Nothing is completed because nothing can be completed. The despair in the play, which is never defined as such but which pervades all the lack of action and gives the play its metaphysical colour, is the fact that the two tramps cannot not wait for Godot, and the corollary fact that he cannot come.
More images and a small MP3 file of a wonderful garbled 3 minutes speech from Lucky when his hat is placed on his head and he is ordered to think can be downloaded here
Vladimir: Well, shall we go?
Estragon: Yes, let's go.
They do not move. 
The autumn and winter months are traditionally the time when the music scene in Barga starts to "ferment" and evolve. Lots of changes in lineups, new groups, new sounds and new ideas are being rehearsed ready for the spring where once more they burst into the open in front of the waiting audiences.
So what has been going on behind closed doors these past few months?
There are three main groups coming to the boil at the moment... Ortonovo, the main homegrown Barga group who have been gaining strength and depth over the years and two new upstarts to the Barga scene; Strabacco and Jack's Pack.
Ortonovo have been in their rehearsal studio at Gallicano all year and are just about to launch their first CD with their new record label. (barganews will bring you a taster from that CD as soon as we can get our sticky hands in it)
Strabbaco, the new singer/songwriter duo with Mirko and Jack Nannini have also signed a deal with a record label and they too are busily preparing their stage act ready for the new season.
All eyes at the moment are on the new group, Jack's Pack who have their first public outing on December 4th at the Barga Jazz Club. This group which has risen phoenix like out of the ashes of "Uno per La Strada" and incorporating two members of Ortonovo has been seen all winter trudging backwards and forwards across Barga Vecchia with their instruments moving from one rehearsal studio to another. Word on the street is that they are hot, hot, hot !
Time will tell if they do manage to live up to all the hype that is floating round about them at the moment. Watch this space. More information about these groups can be found here on the forum
Just about to be released on european screens but already shot straight to the top of the Box Office in Australia, the Diary of Bridget Jones sequel; The Edge of Reason has a little suprise for Barga.
Moving across the silver screen with Renee Zellweger, Colin Firth and Hugh Grant is none other than Alex Curtis, well known in Barga Vecchia and starting to make a name for himself with small parts in a number of films being shot in Britain.
He did appear briefly in the action film King Arthur but with his distinctive face being hidden by an armoured helmet he was difficult to spot, this time it is difficult to miss his huge sideburns and mop of hair.
STOP PRESS; the secret of just how Alex manages to keep those sideburns under control is now out .... read here
The Hard Disc failure on the main barganews.com servers* of two weeks ago did a whole lot of damage. We managed to get most of the backup data on line fairly quickly but unfortunately the forum database was damaged in the crash and repeated attempts to restore the data failed leaving with little option but to wipe clean the slate and start fresh.
There was a thriving community on the barganews forum with over 600 members .. all of this data has now been lost so you will have to rejoin as a new member if you wish to post anything on the forum.
Welcome to the squeaky clean new barganews.com forum ...updated and with lots of new features which you will discover as you get used to the place.
The forum is here
The author Vincenzo Pardini presented a new book on Giovanni Pascoli "Giovanni Pascoli nelle valle del bello e del buono" by Umberto Sereni this afternoon at the Osteria Pascoliana at Ponte di Campia. The Osteria also offered to the assembled guests a tasting of traditional autumn fare ... polenta, castagnaccio and roast chestnuts. More images here
Bright crisp autumn weather for the inauguration for the start of construction of the new bridge at Loc. Rio di Montebono this morning. It has been a long, long time coming but finally residents of Montebono will shortly be able to reach their houses without , as it was put at the opening speeches this morning "crossing the river bed like in a Wild West film "
The new bridge should be ready some time in 2005 More images here
The 30 metre tall pine tree that has stood and given shade in one of piazzas in Barga Vecchia since the late 30's is no more. It had grown too tall and the recent storms had damaged the tree and made it too dangerous to survive.
Last Saturday night, falling branches caused by the Grecale .. a strong wind coming from the north-east which swept through the city completely destroyed a parked car and caused some structural damage to the surrounding houses.
This morning tree surgeons started the complicated task of cutting down such a tall tree without further damaging the surrounding houses. More images here
As the winter evening draw in and the cold sharp weather begins to bite, what better than to pass an hour or so with friends in the company of Aristodemo and Marino at the now world famous Casciani's bar in Barga Vecchia ?
This evening there were just two musicians playing... and playing is the precise word to use as they were both toying with the music and having fun; Aristodemo on keyboards and Alessandro Rizzardi on sax.
Download a small MP3 file of their music here
A sleepless night for many in Barga Vecchia last night as the tramontana* .. a strong wind coming from the north swept through the city causing some light structural damage to many houses and a good deal of damage to one or two.
This morning the streets were littered with broken tiles lifted from the roofs by the gusting wind, but the most serious damage was to a parked car completely destroyed by falling branches and some structural damage to the surrounding houses.
The monthly market in Barga Vecchia was cancelled this morning due to fears of more tiles coming down to earth as winds picked up again mid morning More image here
*EDIT: thank you whoever you were for posting a comment below with the correct name of this wind "The strong wind which did these damages, is not Tramontana (from North), but Grecale (from North-East)."
So just what have a derelict church in Clyde Bank, Glasgow, Scotland and the new construction taking place down by the railway station at Mologno got in common?
The answer is the continuing story of exchanges between Scotland and Barga and the work of one Scotsman; Billy Connell from Glasgow. He has spent many happy summers in Barga and wanted to show his appreciation for all the time spent here. 
The perfect opportunity arose when the noticed the new bell tower at Mologno being erected ... Billy owns a derelict church; Hamilton Memorial Church in ClydeBank and he thought is would be the perfect gesture to donate the 120 year old bell inside the steeple to Barga "The most Scottish town in Italy"
Plans are now in action to transport the bell from Scotland to Barga sometime this winter in good time for the inaugaration of the new Mologno Bell tower in the spring.
images of the Hamilton Memorial Church © vistaimages.co.uk
Well, that was a hard couple of days!
As you may have noticed barganews has been off line since Sunday evening due to a hard disc failure on the main server.
The backup of all the data took some time to sort out and get back up on line due to the sheer size and complexity of barganews these days. Anybody notice the front page from 3 years ago that was accidentally put up on line for a few hours ? Quite nice to see just how far the site has evolved in the last 5 years wasn't it ?
Ok, we are now back up and once again in business. Please be patient for a while while we sort out all those loose ends .... things that require database movements will be off line for a while while they are sorted out, stuff like the forum and calendar of events, for instance.
Somebody with a wicked sense of humour posted an image on another forum claiming that Google had published an article saying that gnomes had taken over barganews.
Thanks Deety for that bit of light relief in what had been a couple of very depressing days.
Large crowds of well wishers this afternoon made the long trip up the mountainside to Renaio to help Franca Marchi celebrate the re-opening of the Bar -Ristoro Il Mostrico.
More images here
Serata Bossanova con la straordinaria cantante Cristina Pantaleone accompagnata da chitarra e contrabbasso in purissimo stile brasiliano.
Bossanova night at the Barga Jazz Club with the pure voice of Cristina Pantaleone and her group; Nino Pellegrini on double bass and Andrea Lombardo on guitar
More images and a small MP3 music file here
We all just took another step closer to the concept of Barga as "Barga Art City" with the recent opening of the Dulcinea artists community on a hill over looking the city.
This coming summer they will offer accommodations for five writers, of any genre (Poetry, fiction, non-fiction, literary criticism, playwriting, screenwriting, and botanical writing) and are working towards renovating another building for working space and bedrooms for two visual artists.
From their website we can read;
"We are established to support innovative, cross-cultural artistic expression while attending to the needs of both emerging and established artists. Dulcinea strives to bring together artists from around the world who are seeking time, space, and support to pursue their creative projects.
We believe that art is vital to the evolution of self and world, and that it is to be nurtured as such. Time away from the hectic pace and demands of modern life is to be understood as necessary for creativity to flourish.
With this in mind, Dulcinea will offer 42 residencies per year, with as many fully paid residencies as each year's surplus will allow after expenses.
We will provide personal living and working space, and three meals a day from local producers and our organic vegetable gardens, as well as cultural outings in and around Barga.
Dulcinea will constantly strive to promote the creative benefits of gaining new cultural perspectives with the hopes of encouraging breakthrough art, and communication between cultures, communities, and respective artistic crafts.
Here at barganews we will be following closely the people at Dulcinea with regular articles and images on the artists and their work as they gradually take up their position inside the growing artistic community in and around Barga.
The Dulcinea Community website is here
As the season turns into the wonderful autumn colours, O'Connor the award winning barganews photographer has been out with his trusty digital camera capturing some of the deeper tones that autumn provides. His images this month are full of the colours of wine making, chestnuts and bunches of grapes in the last of the autumn sun.
Watch this space as a rumour in the piazza is that he is preparing a book containing some of the vendemmia images from this month. Remember you heard it here first.
His images for October are here
Thousands of people came through the gates of Barga Vecchia last night to celebrate doom and gloom within the castle. The imported festa of Halloween goes from strength to strength. Each year more people take part and each year the polemic grows as to just what is the point of a festa that celebrates death, blood and gore. Is it just another kind of carnival but with added blood or does it have stronger, deeper roots stretching back into our collective memories from europe in darker times? Whatever, people had fun last night.
O'Connor the award winning photographer for barganews was out and about in the dark streets of Barga last night but for some reason all the images that he filed for this article seem to be of women who were in the Altana Trattoria and nowhere else. Was he kept prisoner there during the night or are there darker forces at work ?
More images here
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