The Rogatchi Foundation was delighted to participate in two-day commemoration of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day 2024, this time in Florence, Italy, and in the world of music.
The multiplied events that took place at the Cherubini Conservatory of Florence were part of the international M.A.M., Music, Art, Memory project which unites colleagues from Italy, Germany and Finland, and which is dedicated to the ongoing memory, creative education and humanity, and includes the efforts of the Cherubini Conservatory of Florence, DIMA Association of Arezzo, several other Italian musical schools and colleges, as well as Saarbrucken High Musical School, The Diplomatic Quartet Berlin from Germany, and the Rogatchi Foundation from Finland.
On January 26th, 2024, the event at the Cherubini Conservatory included the presentation and screening of Inna Rogatchi’s The Lessons of Survival film about Simon Wiesenthal, and an outstanding live concert by the students of the Cherubini Conservatory, DIMA Association, Musical Lyceums Alberto Dante from Florence and Francesco Petrarca from Arezzo, and other top musical schools of Tuscany paired with projection of Michael Rogatchi well-known In the Mirror of the Shoah collection of artworks. In the words of well-known national Italian politician, Rosa Maria Di Giorgi, long-term Vice-President of the Senate, and currently President of the Cherubini Conservatory, ‘not only we all commemorate and celebrate humanity today, at the days dedicated to our memory of the unparalleled tragedy of the Shoah, but we do it in harmony, and this is essentially important because it both cements this soul-building experience and ensures its continuation in our lives’. This was an important message for the audience which consisted of young students from Florence, Arezzo, Tuscany and far beyond it, as far as Treviso.
On January 27th, 2024, at the same celebrated Buonomore Hall of the Cherubini Conservatory, an important ceremony and commemorative concert took place. The families of five Italian citizens who were deported to the German camps during the Second World War, were awarded with the Presidential Medal of Honor, in the presence of the entire political, administrative, civic, police, military, high educational, and all other authorities of Florence and some other regions of Tuscany. The touching ceremony and deep, personal presentations were followed by a splendid concert with a new program and participants, including fantastic Florence guitar Sinfonietta Ensemble and an extraordinary recital by great pianist prof. Georgi Mundrov from the Saarbrucken High Musical School .
The beautiful concert was structured in an elegant and powerful way, having as its framework simply great readings from Elie Wiesel’s Night by two actors from Teatro Arca Azzura, Dimitry Frossali and Massimo Salvianti. The entire concert and readings were accompanied by the projection of Michael Rogatchi In the Mirror of the Shoah art series. The synthesis of music, art, literature and live performance have produced an unprecedented, deep and multidimensional effect and has become a creation of its own, according to many people who attended this unique ceremony in a completely full house of the Buonomore Hall of the famed Cherubini Conservatory of Florence.
As it turned out, this two-day commemoration of an indisputable value of a human life , and pain of our wounded memory in several generations was the first event of the kind which has been organised and conducted by any conservatory all over Italy. We are very proud and happy for our dear colleagues from Cherubini Conservatory, DIMA Association, who originated this idea and made it happen, the father of the M.A.M. project world-famous guitar musician prof. Giorgio Albiani, his colleague Serena Meloni, project manager Anna Maria Emanuele and all their colleagues participated in this beautiful, caring, talented and heartfelt two-day celebration of humanity in Florence. Grazie cordialmente a tutti.