Babel: the world meets in Naples!

Intercultural choirs are choirs that live in Italian territory and merge different musical cultures, depending on the members who compose them.

They are made up of choir members from different nationalities and religions.

Now widespread in many cities, they were born in response to various needs: the educational needs of schools attended by many foreign children, musical curiosity about other musical cultures; the desire to welcome and communicate with new citizens, stable migrants, or asylum seekers.

They share one characteristic: the desire to use music and choral singing as moments of aggregation and unity even when languages, writing, and traditions are different.

Our choirs mix and create new interpretations based on the proposals of choir members, always different, without showcasing the differences or conducting philological research on traditions, which are often, unfortunately, disappearing.

From this common desire and the plurality of experiences, the idea of an annual meeting was born, held each year in a different city, to bring our songs to a wider audience, exchange experiences and initiatives, and discuss new musical phenomena related to immigration.

In this way, the initial Babel of languages (we count 15-20 nationalities among us) has become, through our choirs, its opposite: a journey from incomprehension to unity: a union of voices, the creation of new music, reinterpretations of songs, new knowledge of ancient cultures.

This is BabelebaB, a symbolic palindrome of our journey.

From Turin (Cantabile) to Venice and Pordenone (Voci del Mondo and Canto Sconfinato) to the choirs from Emilia (Chemin des femmes, Mikrokosmos, Interculturale di Reggio Emilia, Consonanze, Coro di periferia), Tuscany (CONfusion), and Rome (coro Incanto and coro Romolo Balzani), we will all meet in Naples – Scampia:

A large project supported by the City of Naples and the VIII Municipality, by the University Federico II, which will host the Conference, by EAV, which will provide spaces for the workshops we will organize, by the Caritas Diocesana of Naples, which generously coordinates free hospitality through its network of families; by the Fondazione Migrantes at CEI; by the Consulta delle Associazioni dell’VIII Municipalità di Napoli; by the Rete Mediterraneo Antirazzista, which will feed us on Saturday at lunch at Chikù, and by the Angeli di Strada Villanova and Fondazione Progetto Arca, which will offer us dinner on Saturday evening.

With annual events in different cities in the country, we will strengthen this wonderful network of solidarity among us and around us, aiming each year at a local direction/organization, the responsible leader of the great musical, scientific, and organizational work implied.

It is in the nature of our choirs to be inclusive. Jordi Savall, a great musician and conductor, writes: "new citizens are living libraries of cultures." We are inclusive to anyone who wants to participate in this new recompositional process.

All participating choirs are committed to raising funds for transportation costs, which are prohibitive for many choir members.

We don't want to leave anyone behind for economic or physical reasons: it would be a setback for us, after months of rehearsing together, to have to give up the presence of someone!

We ask for your help to ensure transportation even for those in fragile situations:

your contribution is important: it will be used for 15 travel grants of €100 each.

Each choir will report its cases, and the grants will be given directly by the lead choir (Multicolori di Napoli) to the requesting choir.

With your help, we want to reach and exceed our goal and create all the travel grants necessary!

No one should stay home!