Italian musicians
and Canadian engineers
together for WWD in Vancouver

[GTranslate]VANCOUVER – For the first time, an Italian orchestra will be the protagonist of the World Water Day, celebrated on 22 March and organized in Canada: it’s the Bazzini Consort, a Brescia musical reality wanted and founded by young musicians, which pursues exclusively artistic, cultural and educational purposes and carries out dissemination activities for schools.

World Water Day, whose theme this year is the link between water and climate change, is promoted by the Reseau Center for Mobilizing Innovation (based at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver) which for the 2021 edition decided to involve the Bazzini Consort to convey its message: can we use music and other arts to better understand how to solve the problems of water quality and well-being in the 21st century? The answer is “yes” according to the conductor and artistic director of the Bazzini Consort, Aram Khacheh (in the pic above), who chose Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” for this occasion.

«Vivaldi’s work is a perfect example of the role of climate change in the life of communities around the world – explains Khacheh -. The ‘Seasons’ illustrate, through the notes of the different instruments, what happens when the crops are rich or when, on the contrary, drought announces famine and hunger, when the climate is favorable to crops and when it is not ».

“Vivaldi (1678-1741) composes the ‘The Four Seasons’ (1723, publication 1725) against the backdrop of what would have been a century of natural climatic calamities that caused or contributed to causing political and social turmoil in the world – Khacheh still remembers – and the extreme climatic anomalies that occurred in the 17th and 18th centuries caused crop losses in Italy, Poland and Russia, drought in Portugal and Catalonia, and rice shortages in Japan. Calamities whose direct consequence were upheavals and riots, demonstrating how climate change has a drastic impact on people’s lives, then as now ».

The Bazzini Consort then joined forces with Reseau Cmi to create a series of short videos with excerpts from “The Four Seasons”. The clips and pieces of music chosen harmonize well with the messages that the Canadian non-profit organization wants to convey about the climate, water and well-being of the communities.

“We are enthusiastic about this project – underlined Dr. Madjid Mohseni, scientific director of Reseau Cmi – and we tend to think of this initiative for World Water Day as a step towards breaking the boundaries between art and technology, expanding our collaborative efforts thanks to creative, passionate and innovative minds in Italy ».

World Water Day, established by the United Nations in 1992 and foreseen within the directives of Agenda 21 resulting from the Rio conference, aims to make people aware of the 2.2 billion people who do not have access to safe water and promotes actions to make everyone aware of the supply problems of this precious and common good. The aim of this day is also to promote the achievement of United Nations Goal 6 for sustainable development: water and hygiene for all by 2030.

A particular and unprecedented combination, therefore, that between the Bazzini Consort and the Canadian research center which confirms, once again, the importance of thinking outside the box and having innovative communication approaches to raise awareness on climate change and its impact on ‘water.

The videos will be made public on March 22 on the social channels of the two organizations. Information on www.worldwaterday.org or www.reseaucmi.org or www.bazziniconsort.it

The Bazzini Consort Orchestra during a concert in memory of Covid-19 victimis, in Brescia, September 2020 (photo Christian Penocchio)