In Adelfia, music does not turn off

Adelfia is a small town in Southern Italy, in the marvelous Puglia, besieged – like the rest of the country – by the coronavirus, which stopped everything for months.

However, music-for-free lessons have never stopped. Adelfia’s MusicaInGioco is an El Sistema-inspired non-profit association that provides free lessons and music instruments to children and young people with socio-economic disadvantages or with learning disorders (SLD, ADHD, Asperger and Down syndrome, Autism). Since 2010 to date, the number of the children and young people involved in the music training activities has increased to over 400%: from 38 children in 2010, MusicaInGioco teaches music to over 160 little musicians.

The impact of Covid-19 on our URBACT OnStage network activities, on our URBACT Local Group and more generally on our city has been long and hard. Therefore, our schedule and way of working has needed some adaptation.

Some of the Local Group team members continued to work by discussing how to adapt their schedule and the new ways of working, as well as sharing new ideas and communication strategies in the new context.

Prior to the pandemic, we had 160 pupils aged 3 to 19 divided into 3 orchestras, and  the lessons have never stopped except for the youngest. The teachers continued their lessons using online platforms (Zoom, Skype, G-suite) voluntarily, receiving an excellent response from the young musicians.

Considering the different ages, almost 70% of children followed this new form of education and, as per agreement with the teachers, they practice their instrument 15 minutes every day.

Anyway, as Antonio Moretti, - president of the association -  says, “MusicaInGioco, is not only a music school; it's a “comunidad”, a powerful force for cohesion, enabling us to get to know other people and places, and therefore helping us to give substance to the concept of active citizenship in the enlarged town. That's the reason why we do believe that it is important that pupils and teachers return to physically meet and to play live as before the lockdown.”

In that regard, we got great news from the Municipality of Adelfia on May 27^th.

“We have sanitized all the rooms of Palazzo Conte Sabini, seat of the MusicaInGioco association”, told us Biagio Cistulli – alderman for the Department of Social Services of the Municipality of Adelfia. With great enthusiasm, therefore, the artistic director, Andrea Gargiulo announced that, starting the coming weeks up to December and following the guidelines of social distance, it will be possible to resume lessons in attendance, given that the building granted by the municipal administration has large classrooms that are well suited to ministerial directives.

“It was absolutely necessary to distribute the activities of MusicaInGioco” continues Biagio Cistulli, “because of its important social value on our territory, and that's the reason why we have sanitized Palazzo Conte Sabini so soon”. At the same time, the activities of scientific screening will restart to test the influence of music on children with cognitive disorders in collaboration with the University of Bari, the University of Aarhus and the Cambridge University, with the precious support and promotion of Adelfia Junior High School Moro – Falcone.

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Article by Maria Pia Ferrante - For further information, please contact her at gmail
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