Cascais – “Duse e Muse”, a jazz concert combining music and cinema

A single event combining music and cinema is scheduled for Saturday, 16 April, at 7 p.m. in Cascais, Portugal. The Italian Institute of Culture (IIC) in Cascais is staging the Cinema Jazz Concert “Duse and Muses – The Soundtracks of Art”, featuring Marcello Allulli at the sax and Giovanni Ceccarelli at the piano. On the background will run images from “Cenere” (1916), a silent movie by Febo Mari featuring Eleonora Duse. The event, which is part of the “8 ½ Italian Film Festival in Portugal, will be held at the Italian Institute of Culture which, for the first time hosts the Festival, now at its 9^th edition. The concert will provide a soundtrack to the silent film “Cenere” with music composed, arranged and performed live by Marcello Allulli (one of Italy’s best sax players) and Giovanni Ceccarelli (nominated at the “Latin Grammy Awards” in the Best MPB Album category). The eclectic talent and great musical and human affinity of the two musicians will turn the concert into a total and seamless fusion of neo-bop, funk and Mediterranean folk, avant-garde and melodious music. The film is based on a novel by Grazia Deledda and is to be considered the most significant example of the combination of literature and theatre. The film not only hands down the concrete testimony of Eleonora Duse, Italy’s greatest theatre actress – which would in and of itself suffice to give it a unique place in the history of Italian cinema – but is also among the most vivid examples of an adaptation from literature not prompted by superficial reasons of convenience.