In a Changing Italy, a Band With a Multicultural Face

ROME - The other night, when it seemed as if everybody was on the street sweating off the late summer heat, a young, smart-looking crowd filed through a fog of cigarette smoke into the Teatro dell’Opera to hear a small orchestra of fellow Romans play the overture from Mozart’s “Magic Flute.”

That doesn’t sound remarkable, but then Sanjay Kansa Banik got the ball rolling on the tabla with a long, mesmerizing solo of quickening tempo, which segued into a virtuoso turn by Dialy Mady Sissoko on the oud, to the accompaniment of a viola and violin.

The Orchestra di Piazza Vittorio, as it’s called, is made up mostly of immigrants living in Rome. An immigrant band wouldn’t raise an eyebrow in the United States, but it does in Europe, especially in Italy, where periodically some local arts star bemoans the country’s insularity and its resulting moribund culture.

Read the full article on the New York Times website.

The Orchestra di Piazza Vittorio is playing in the Barbican Hall on Friday 17 July. Click here for more info.

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