NEW PALTZ — A concert featuring Alessandra Belloni and I Giullari di Piazza (the players of the square) will take place at 4 p.m. on Sunday Oct. 26 in Studley Theater. This performance, titled “Tarantelle e Canti d’Amore,” is free and open to the public. The performance features mystical trance rituals, laments of love, and haunting prayer songs of southern Italy.
Italian-born Alessandra Belloni is one of the world’s most accomplished performers and teachers of traditional Southern Italian dance, music and popular theater. Widely acclaimed as one of the greatest living percussionists, she conducts performances and workshops throughout the United States and the world. Belloni has performed throughout the world with the ensemble I Giullari di Piazza, which she formed in 1979 with composer and classical guitarist John La Barbera.
The event is sponsored by the Luigi and Anita Traverso Italian Studies Endowment, the Italian Studies Program, the Italian Club, and the alumni and friends of New Paltz through the SUNY New Paltz Foundation.
The Luigi and Anita Traverso Endowment was created by Professor Emeritus Giancarlo Traverso to honor his and his brother Giuseppe’s parents. It provides funding for scholarships to benefit SUNY New Paltz students interested in Italian Studies and for an annual lecture series open to the public.
The endowment seeks to increase enrollment in the Italian Studies program, to expand the program’s service to the Hudson Valley community, to offer forums for discussion on the Italian and Italian-American experience and to help establish a major in Italian Studies.
