Thursday, January 15, 2015

Luca di Maio--musician, linguist

Luca di Maio is a cousin of our landlord, and a university graduate in linguistics. He makes part of his living teaching Italian to foreigners, and he agreed to teach Italian to us.

Yet another of the many delights of being in Rome! We soon learned that he is not only an accomplished linguist and language teacher but also a musician and composer.

A piece of his music has been used in a film, L'Arte della Felicita' (The Art of Happiness), which just last month won the European Film Award for Best Animated Feature Film. You can watch this film - the preview is in the link just above.

Image result for l'arte della felicità
Grab shot from Wikipedia article on L'Arte della Felicita'

Now here is Luca's music! This piece is named Precipitare con Gioia (To Precipitate Joy is a literal rendering). This is a recording of it on YouTube.

Julianne says: I just love this little piece.  I wish I were more musically literate to be able to describe the piece and my reaction to it.  It has a compelling but not overwhelming rhythm.  The melody seems upbeat to me but there is an underlying note of longing or sadness.  Musical composition seems almost magical to me--how do they do this?

Nancy says: I could listen to a lot more of Luca's music. It's rather addicting.
Luca is an interesting guy to talk to and a very good teacher as well. I learned enough Italian to know something about the way sentences work, and with my dictionary I can often figure out what a text is about. I was sorry to stop.

Julianne says: Nancy persisted with lessons until the Christmas holiday, but the future of our many coming visitors made it no longer feasible.  She is actually pretty good and can translate signs here and there.  Sadly, I dropped out after a couple of lessons but feel pleased with my progress anyway.  I just decided I could not make myself work hard enough to actually learn anything very systematically.  Something about being retired, maybe.

But despite laziness and lack of effort on language, I am so pleased to know Luca.  Both of us hope to watch his career as he rockets to well-deserved stardom.

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