It was a unique harmony, but composed of over 600 different voices, the one that filled today’s evening in Gorizia. In Piazza Vittoria, Italian and Slovenian choristers had the opportunity to be directed by John Rutter, a very famous English composer, who the Today Show program on the American NBC defined as “the greatest living composer and director of choral music”. A show that captivated many Gorizians, some of whom had already been present a few minutes earlier at the general rehearsal, braving the weather.
At the end of the last test, in fact, some drops of rain began to fall, making us fear the worst for the performance. In the end, however, calm returned without having to resort to plan B of the Teatro Verdi, allowing musicians and singers to give free rein to their music. What brought the great composer to the heart of the city, together with that army of voices and instruments, was the synergy between the Coro del Friuli Venezia Giulia and the regional choral associations Usci and Slovenian Jskd, with the partnership of the Naonis Academy of Pordenone.
The same Naonis instrumentalists played in the middle of the square, together with colleagues from the Pordenone Chamber Orchestra and the Arrigoni String Academy of San Vito al Tagliamento. The event also had the support of the choral music department of the Slovenian Ministry of Culture and the Kulturni Dom of Gorizia, as well as the support of the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region and the collaboration of the GECT Go and the Municipality of Gorizia. Furthermore, all participants wore the white GO!2025 t-shirt.
The choirs, arranged in a semicircle in front of the church of Sant’Ignazio, sang the songs prepared with maestro Mateja Černic, following the baton of the great British name. An emotion for him too, that of playing in the heart of the city, as his long performance demonstrated thanks to all the participants and the large audience present. Although it wasn’t initially planned, in the end she granted the encore much requested by those present, greeting everyone at the end and disappearing among the choristers with her sly smile.
A concert lasting just half an hour but which wanted to be a European message, with Rutter himself who – although British – proudly raised the European Union flag to the sky on a day that was not at all random. Together with the community flag, also those of Italy and Slovenia, to symbolize the only sky that crosses Gorizia and Nova Gorica, in which the concept of border has never existed. The images of the evening, collected in a video-trailer, will now become an advertisement for this territory and for the Capital of Culture.
The councilor for culture, Fabrizio Oreti, also greeted the musician, giving him a GO!2025 bracelet: «Brings luck». Arrived directly from New York, where he is preparing a concert of his music at Carnegie Hall, Rutter is undoubtedly the most successful choral composer of his generation, and probably of the entire last century. In 1981 he founded the Cambridge Singers choir, which he continues to direct and with which he has recorded a vast repertoire of sacred music, specifically with his own record company, Collegium Records.
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