one hundred years of the music star. The memory of Abruzzo

Last April 16th the 100th anniversary of Enrico’s birth was celebrated in various parts of the world Nicola (Henry) Mancini. Celebrations which brought the three sons of the composer and orchestra director, winner of four Oscars, to visit Scanno, the town from which their grandfather Quintilian (Quinto) had emigrated in 1910. The celebrations, all reported by “The Times”, local newspaper in West Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, include exhibits at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles, displays of Mancini’s sheet music at Tiffany stores in Tokyo and Paris, and an event at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.

Mancini was born in the Maple Heights neighborhood of suburban Cleveland in 1924. When he was 5, his family moved to West Aliquippa, where he remained until he graduated high school in 1942, before moving to Los Angeles, where he died in 1994. During the celebrations, the Turner Classic TV network broadcast the films for which Mancini had composed the soundtrack, while on June 23 the Hollywood Bowl will open its musical season with the soundtrack of “Moon River”, one of Mancini’s best-known compositions, taken from the 1961 film “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”.

However, Mancini’s connection with Abruzzo is missing from the international celebrations. West Aliquippa is also absent. At the Municipality I am not aware of any commemoration and what remains in the city is an important bridge called “The Henry Mancini Memorial Bridge” and, Scott Tady, journalist for the “Times” tells us, an award at the local high school entitled “The Henry Mancini Musical Theater Awards”. The Abruzzo journalist Silvia Mosca reports that after the visit to Scanno on 19 April of Mancini’s three children – the twins Monica and Felice, and their brother Chris, the celebration was taken to L’Aquila, Francavilla and Teramo with a series of concerts entitled “Henry Mancini, an Abruzzese in Hollywood”, created by Paolo Di Sabatino.

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