GLOBAL ITALY
From the Iberian Peninsula to the New World

During the Modern period, in particular in the eighteenth century, an intensive process of musical Italianization took place throughout the Western world. This was a result of the worldwide diaspora of Italian music and musicians. Many of them came from the Kingdom of Naples, a fruitful school of modern music and operatic composition where the Spanish presence was also very strong; in fact, this Kingdom –which occupied the southern half of Italy– was a Spanish viceroyalty until 1707, and the diplomatic, cultural and musical connections between Naples and Spain remained throughout the whole century. Both the continuous circulation of Neapolitan (and, in general, Italian) musicians and their arrival to all the corners of the world (including Latin America and the Philippines, via the Iberian Peninsula) resulted in a globalization of the compositional and performative style known as “Galant” and considered to be synonymous with modernity, expressivity and sophistication. Under the title “Global Italy”, the FeMAUB 2019 addresses this issue and includes a series of concerts which are representative of the transnational connection of Italy to the Iberian Peninsula and the New World, as well as a conference devoted to Ignacio Jerusalem y Stella (1707-1769), a Neapolitan composer who is commemorated on the 250th anniversary of his death. Jerusalem, who worked in Spain and Mexico, is a paradigm of the adaption and updating of the Neapolitan Galant style in Hispanic lands.

Javier Marín
Director of the FeMAUB