Press Release

BATTIATO. THE MEMORY OF A BRIDGE FOR:
"IN BAGHDAD WITH US HE DEFIED THE EMBARGO BY BRINGING HIS MUSIC OF PEACE".

Rome, 18 May 2021. "We remember in Franco Battiato a great and brilliant artist but also an extraordinary man of peace who did not hesitate to use his prestige and notoriety to violate the senseless embargo against the Iraqi people. It was 4 December 1992 and Iraq and its people were being put on the Index by the international community. He asked us to collaborate on a dream of his, to hold a concert in Baghdad. It immediately seemed a beautiful idea to us and we put all our contacts and strength into making the concert happen. Without his firm will, we would never have succeeded'. This was stated in a statement by the two national co-presidents of Un Ponte Per Alfio Nicotra and Angelica Romano.

'It was an exciting, beautiful concert,' Nicotra and Romano continue. 'In Italy it was broadcast live from the National Theatre in Baghdad by Videomusic. The notes broke down fences, crossed the wall of hatred, uniting peoples with music."

"Battiato himself," continue the two Un Ponte Per co-presidents, "recalled, not hiding his emotion, the emotion of the Iraqi musicians deprived, due to the embargo, of sheet music, reeds and violin strings. The concert piano itself was tuned to 440 instead of 442 for fear that everything would blow up. Even today when we meet the Iraqi musicians from that concert, they ask us to bring their greetings and thanks to this great maestro."

"His was a special music," Romano and Nicotra conclude, "a bridge between cultures and at the same time mestizo. There was so much Mediterranean and Arab world in his notes'.